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9 


A 

SKETCH IN THE IDEAL 


A EOMANOE. 




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PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
1891. 





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Copyright, 1891, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 







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Indian Summer? 

Ay, in dreamland some perchance may find their 
Indian Summer. 


3 




The airs of spring may never play 
Among the ripening corn, 

Nor freshness of the flowers of May 
Blow through the autumn mom. 

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look 
Through fringed lids to heaven, 

And the pale aster in the brook 
Shall see its image given. 

The woods shall wear their robe of praise, 

The south- wind softly sigh, 

And sweet, calm days in golden haze 
Melt down the amber sky. 

And so the shadows fall apart, 

And so the west-winds play; 

And all the windows of my heart 
I open to the day. 

John Qreenleaf Whittier. 


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A 


SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


CHAPTER I. 

The sun was saying good-night. 

He smiled upon the maple by the window, 
that tender smile that has a farewell in it, and 
was gone. But the crimson and gold of autumn 
remained upon the tree, and Alvia, looking upon 
it, fell to thinking and dreamed. 

Alvia, with silver threads among her brown, 
that lay in rippling waves above a forehead 
which was neither too low nor too high, too 
narrow nor too broad ; Alvia, upon whose form 
and movements sat all gentle grace ; Alvia, 
with love lurking around lips that were tender 

7 


8 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


and sweet; Alvia, with face somewhat beyond 
the rounded freshness of its youth, but with 
tenderness of outline, with depth in the blue- 
grey eyes, with a spirituality hovering about her 
being which comes not in earlier days. 

Even in the times when she was lightest a 
close observer might have seen that regret had 
clasped hands with her, had reached her heart 
and looked out from her eyes, and tinged with 
sadness the love that lurked about her lips. On 
this night it would not have required the keenest 
observation to reveal this fact to another. 

As she stood alone within her open window, 
her eyes seemed trying to follow whither the sun 
had gone, in the longing gaze they were sending 
westward beyond the lane of maples. Surely, 
something in life those eyes as yet had never 
found ; or, finding once, had lost. 

“Lost! — lost!” The leaves seemed to echo 
the words as they rustled along the lane toward 
the sunset. 

But in reality Alvia was not looking toward 
the setting sun, she was looking inward, and 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


eastward, toward the Land of the Morning: 
looking as they look who hold a portraiture of 
one long passed away. 

The picture that memory held before her was 
one in which she saw the strongest and the 
sweetest face that she had known ; its grey eyes 
looked down tenderly upon her still, through 
the distance of many years. 

As she stood with her gaze so far away, she 
was thinking, would he ever know while living 
in the flesh that she had sinned against him in 
that long-ago through ignorance alone : never 
through her heart ? 

In all the years there had been no bridge 
upon which she might cross to him, and woman’s 
pride had held her feet in their unswerving way. 
There had been a time when she had looked for 
him to make a way across the silence, and in 
that time she had felt that he cared not, else 
he would have done so. In later days she had 
come to understand how it must have seemed to 
him, a part that she had taken in the past ; and 
then — it was too late. 


10 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“ And did she love him ? What if she did not ? 

Then home was still the home of happiest years ; 
Nor thought was exiled to partake his lot, 

Nor heart lost courage through foreboding fears; 
Kor echo did against her secret plot, 

Nor music her betray to painful tears ; 

Nor life become a dream and sunshine dim. 

And riches poverty because of him.” * 

Ah, and if she did ? 

The years went by; he was living his life and 
she was living hers, hut, for herself, she felt she 
had lost the best that she had known. 

Alvia had never felt herself lovely to look 
upon ; she was ever unaware of the charm that 
hung about her. She had wondered sometimes, 
in the pure innocence of her soul, what this man, 
who was to her the type of perfect manhood, 
had found about herself upon which to rest his 
fancy. Fancy? Most men fancy; she felt that 
he could love. 

With the twilight falling about her she stood 
looking out still into the dimness. It seemed 
as if to-night the old spell of his presence had 


* Jean Ingelow. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. H 

come upon her once again. She heard the but- 
ler in the room below announcing that tea was 
served; but still she lingered by the window. 
Her eyes still followed the rustling line of 
maples, while over and over in her heart those 
lines of Motherwell were repeating themselves : 

“ And I could hug all wretchedness 
And happy could I dee, 

Did I hut ken your heart still dreamed 
O’ hy-gane days and me.’* 

Were there ever in his heart a dream of her ? 
When, amid the tumult of life, there came to 
him a little lull ; or when the world about 
him was hushed to silence and time came, not 
only for thinking but for recollection, then, “ in 
the stilly night,’’ did there come to him one 
thought of by-gane days” and her ? 

Her hand found its way to her face ; perhaps 
the mists of evening were creeping into her 
eyes. She turned and hastily put away her 
sadness, as the years had taught her long ago 
to do ; put it away from other eyes ; ay, put it 


12 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


away from her own heart as bravely as she 
might. 

To-night she was to sing. Her voice never 
failed to fascinate wherever it was heard ; a 
mezzo-soprano, well cultivated, with a certain 
richness of quality ; but that which charmed the 
most was its magnetism, its sympathy; call it 
what you will, it was the soul of the voice. 

On this night there was a concert given for 
charity; given by amateurs, and she had con- 
sented to sing more publicly that she had done 
before. 

Though by nature sensitive and retiring, she 
had not allowed this to degenerate into awkward- 
ness; cultivation had made her mistress of herself. 

Her brief though not hasty toilet was made, 
with thoughts quite unencumbered by the 
coming event; they were dwelling still upon 
the subject of the early evening. Why, after so 
many hopeless years of separation, should she 
yield herself so completely to the old charm 
again ? A charm which no other had been able 
to impress upon her soul. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


13 


Ah, well, dream Alvia, although his home be 
many, many leagues away; in fancy let him 
walk again beside you as you step out into the 
starlight ; and as you roll along from your fair 
suburban home toward the evening’s work of 
love, again let him sit beside you in your dream- 
ing ; just once again, as of old. 

As she leaned among the cushions her heart 
did carry her thoughts to a land of happy 
dreams. 

iN’ow, her life would be blank indeed were it 
not for the spots of sunshine she could some- 
times throw upon the hearts of others; this 
seemed to reflect upon her the only brightness 
of her life. Hope, that great necessity of hu- 
manity, had seemed denied her long ago, — she 
tried simply to live as best she might from day 
to day; but away, way back there lay a land that 
was flooded with its own peculiar light : there — 
the sun was always shining; shining a little 
more brightly, a little more tenderly than she 
had ever seen it since. There — were crisp, au- 
tumn mornings over which hovered all the hope 


14 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


and promise of spring. There — still sometimes 
rang the echo of galloping horses’ hoofs. How 
they seemed to keep time together, just as the 
hearts above them had kept time together, — 
through the light or through the shadow, alike 
on sunny hill-top or through shaded vale ! And 
there — were moonlit evenings; evenings that 
seemed to hold some celestial atmosphere ; 
evenings in which the moon had looked down 
through leafy branches, or smiled from some 
expanse of moonlight blue, as she had never 
looked or smiled again. There, in that land of 
cherished memory, were still the echoes of a 
deep and tender voice, were still the lights from 
true and sunny eyes. Ah, there — life and 
strength and hope and love were waxing; but 
now? A sigh came to Alvia for answer when 
she thought of the now. But in the now ex- 
isted, wherever was sorrow, a loadstone for Alvia 
Melborn. . 

To-night, as her brother seemed fully satisfied 
with refiections of his own, it gave throughout 
the drive a season of uninterrupted musing to 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


15 


herself. She found herself wondering whether, 
if ever by any chance she should meet with those 
eyes again, would they avert their glance? Eyes 
whose deeps had looked so kindly into hers. 

She leaned from the carriage window and 
looked upward; she loved the spangled banner 
God holds above the solemn night. To Alvia it 
seemed an earnest of unbounded love and power. 
E^ot a banner alone for American or European, 
for African or Asiatic, a banner for those of 
high or those of low degree ; but flinging abroad 
its beauty for every heart that beats, and holding 
its message for every soul that needs its consola- 
tion. 

To-night her heart seemed especially to feel 
the need of its eternal message. Through the 
coolness, the silence, the solitude, the darkness, 
she looked upward and rested her soul upon 
those distant stars. They brought her rest, 
speaking as they did to her of an Everlasting 
Father. They did not seem to tell of a God of 
Presbyterian or Episcopalian; a God of ortho- 
dox or heretic ; a God of pagan or of Christian ; 


16 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


but the Eternal — the Universal, — “ Our Father’’ 
of humanity. 

A little later she was standing before the foot- 
lights. The audience was large, and the ap- 
plause was warm. How graceful her acknowl- 
edgment ! 

She was a lovely figure as she stood waiting 
for the prelude : her form well rounded yet deli- 
cate ; her bearing dignity and grace ; her arms, 
just revealed below the elbow, perfect in their 
moulding ; her face not at all in the “ sere and 
yellow leaf,” yet seeming to carry a suggestion 
of the mellow ripeness, the dreamy haze of 
autumn. Delicately fair she was and spiritually 
beautiful. Her dress was of plain, black velvet, 
with fiowing train, — the neck and sleeves dis- 
closing a glimpse of throat and arms, which 
were again partly concealed by a fall of black 
lace above their whiteness. On her breast, at 
the point of her surplice neck lay a cross of 
pearls : her only ornament. 

The full house, greeting her so warmly, 
seemed to inspire rather than overawe. As the 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 17 

first note of the prelude was struck she glanced 
across the audience. A pair of cool, black eyes 
encountered hers with critical scrutiny, and as 
she met them her own turned half disdainfully 
away and fell upon the proscenium box at her 
right in the second circle above the stage. 

The pianist proceeded with the prelude, but 
the 'prima-donna of the occasion forgot that she 
was to sing; forgot entirely the audience that 
was before her; forgot the expectant gaze of 
many scores of eyes; forgot, indeed, herself. 

Richard Blessington ! In reality, — in flesh 
and warm, pulsing life, was it he ? That firm, 
well-knit, graceful man leaning against the pillar 
in the proscenium box, — and to-night, when his 
spirit had seemed so near? Had there been 
some occult magnetic communication from one 
to the other ? A moment before, the separation 
between them had seemed as death. She stood 
transfixed. 

The names of the singers were not upon the 
programme for reason of the private nature of 
the concert. Would he know her after all the 


18 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


years? She would sing to him. Surely the 
fates had turned; to-night they had thrown a 
gift to her, and the name of that gift was oppor- 
tunity. Had she chosen something to sing for 
him, could she have found among all songs one 
more suited than that which was hers upon the 
programme ? It was Sullivan’s exquisite ballad 
“ Let Me Dream Again.” 

Ah, well for Alvia that the prelude was long ! 
The moment came for her voice to strike the 
first note ; full and clear the tones fioated over 
the audience, and with an unspeakably tender 
depth. The house was touched, it was evident 
in the first line of the ballad. It would have 
been a triumph to her heart had it been some 
other night ; but now she could scarcely have 
been farther from the crowd before her had she 
stood in some far-away woodland singing among 
the birds. 

After her first look into the proscenium box 
she had turned her eyes away, but as she sang 
the w’ords “ Is this a dream ?” she lifted them 
for one brief instant to Richard Blessington, and 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


19 


his own were fastened upon hers; the eyes that 
had looked out at her from memory’s portrai- 
ture ; eyes with the same sweet deeps as of old. 
It seemed indeed a dream from which she must 
awake. 

In the applause in the interlude she bowed 
mechanically, but there was no glamour to her 
now about the clapping crowd. For the brief 
moments opportunity vouchsafed her she lived, 
whether she would or not, only toward those 
deep-grey eyes and sang to that one heart alone. 

The house was again hushed ; again she was 
singing ; and the words, “ Oh, do not wake me, 
let me dream again,” thrilled the house like a 
prayer. 

The eyes in the proscenium box were ignoring 
all else for her ; the same true eyes not only her 
mind but her heart remembered were thrilling 
her to-night as of old. 

Richard Blessington possessed the power of a 
unity and entirety of devotion rare among men. 
This was one of the traits that had sunk into 
Alvia’s soul in those years agone. He did not 


20 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


easily fancy ; he was not attracted by every face 
and form that could claim the name of feminine. 
He was utterly regardless of women, though they 
were ready to worship at his feet. For him 
there had been one woman, and one only. Her 
heart had looked back to this in after-years. 

Alvia never knew how she left the stage, nor 
how she reached the anteroom; only the im- 
perative encore that followed her -exit brought 
her to herself. She would not give the song for 
which she had arranged to meet a recall. She 
spoke to the pianist ; yes, he could accompany 
her from memory in the ballad that she wished. 

Hichard Blessington watched. She was com- 
ing, — softly the folds of her black velvet swept 
the stage, — she had bowed, but she had sent no 
glance to him. How the very breath of by-gone 
days seemed to hover about her presence, and 
the old parlor was again before him, with Alvia 
seated at the piano, himself leaning against it 
at her side, drinking every light in her eye, 
every tender tone from her lips ! Ah ! it was 
all his then, all for him, and he had known it; 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


21 


but now? She was not looking toward him 
now. Still, the vision of the old place hung 
about him, and the scent of the honeysuckles 
and roses stealing in through the open windows 
was as fresh as it had been fifteen years before. 
To him, too, the audience had vanished with its 
flutter of kids and lorgnettes ; the great chan- 
delier was gone, the stage, the foot-lights, the 
peculiar-looking genius at the piano. Only 
Alvia was before him and the dim, old parlor 
with its rose-scented windows. 

She stood without notes, her hands hanging 
loosely clasped before her. Then the keys of 
the piano struck a familiar air, and something 
seemed to dim the eyes of Blessington as he 
recognized a song she had sung to him so often 
in that past; ah, yes, — she was singing to him 
now. With what pathos came the words, the 
sweet old words : 

“I cannot sing the old songs 
I sang long years ago, 

For heart and voice would fail me 
And foolish tears would flow. 


22 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Tor though all unforgotten still, 

And sadly sweet they be, 

I cannot sing the old songs, 

They are too dear to me. 

“I cannot sing the old songs, 

Their charm is sad and deep; 

Their melodies would waken 
Old sorrows from their sleep: 

For by-gone days come o’er my heart 
With each familiar strain, 

I cannot sing the old songs 

Nor dream those dreams again.” 

The dark-ejed man in the parquet looked 
critical,— the audience applauded warmly, — the 
tall, broad-shouldered man in the proscenium 
box was dumb. Dumb, unless his attitude and 
his eyes were speaking. 

“ I cannot sing the old songs. 

For visions come again 
Of golden dreams departed 
And years of weary pain.” 

How full, how rich, how tender the voice ! — 
that unforgotten voice. It was to Blessington 
like a breeze from heaven after a long, painful. 


A SKETCH IN TEE IDEAL. 23 

sun-beaten travel through a desert land. And 
then the song was over, and Alvia made her 
graceful farewell ; but not without raising her 
eyes to Blessington. Perhaps he saw something 
in their blue-grey depths that answered to his 
own. 

She had been one of the last to sing. Di- 
rectly Blessington was at the private entrance; 
but as quickly another made his appearance 
there ; also tall, but without the breadth and ele- 
gance of shoulder that Blessington possessed, 
and without the steadfastness of eye. 

‘‘ Beg pardon,’’ said the dark-eyed man, “ hut 
I think you are a stranger, sir, and are looking 
for some one. May I he of service? One or 
two of the ladies who sang leave from the other 
door.” Claude Levin’s manner was frank and 
genial as he spoke these words, and Blessington 
accepted the proffered help graciously, saying 
that he looked for Miss Melborn. 

“ Ah, yes,” said Levin, quietly, “ she leaves 
from the B Street entrance; you probably yet 
can reach it in time.” 


24 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Blessington, after hasty but grateful thanks, 
was barely out of sight when Alvia passed Levin, 
who was standing in a shadow, stepped into her 
carriage, and drove away. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


25 


CHAPTER IL 

Perhaps — Alvia slept that night; if so, her 
dreams could not have seemed to her more 
dreamlike than the events of the evening. If 
she did not sleep, her eyes were strangely brilliant 
on the following day. In the morning she sat 
in the quiet library. The autumn sun streamed 
in through the window, and with every rustle of 
the leaves she raised her eyes toward the gate. 

Mr. Melborn thought she looked as he had 
seen her many years before. 

“Ah, is Claude coming out to-night, my 
daughter? Your face is bright this morning; 
not that it isn’t alwa^^s bright and sweet to me, 
hut it does my old heart good to see you look 
like this.” And there was some reflection of the 
gladness in his own sad, failing eyes as he 
stooped to kiss the child he loved. 


26 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Had Alvia not laid her face against her father’s 
arm he would have seen there the shadow of a 
cloud that had come between it and the sun that 
had lighted it. Why must Claude Levin’s name 
come always like a shadow between her and the 
light? As the thought crossed her mind Levin’s 
material shadow lingered at the gate, while the 
postman’s shadow moved up the street, and the 
postman’s mind pondered upon the unusually 
obliging spirit of Mr. Levin. A half-hour 
earlier the very leaves of the scarlet creeper on 
the porch-posts had held to Alvia an expression 
of gladness, and the dew on the lawn and the 
sunshine on the gravel walk. How thrilled with 
bliss all life had seemed ! but now it was Claude 
Levin’s feet that pressed the sunny gravel walk, 
and the light faded. That morning the cool and 
cynical Claude was aware that his Cousin Alvia 
was more frigid to him even than before. Levin 
had not in the past received much satisfaction 
from his cousin upon the subject of Eichard 
Blessington. His experience with her on this 
topic had not been such as to invite another ap- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


27 


proach to it. But the presence of Levin could 
not take all the light out of this autumn day for 
Alvia. Was it because the air was so crisp, — 
the ether overhead so blue ? Or was there still 
lingering another influence, out of which had 
not yet departed all element of hope ? 

As Claude, her betrothed, came up the walk, 
the crunching of the gravel beneath his feet 
grated harshly enough on her ear ; hut what 
music it might have been — would have been — 
if— ah! if 

In a moment Claude stood before her. It 
seemed to her his bearing had never been so 
Mephistophelian, his voice so hard, so false. 

“ I came out to ride with you this morning,” 
he said, nonchalantly. 

“ You are welcome to any horse in the stable,” 
she replied, in a voice which spoke only of self- 
control. 

‘^And which will you take to-day, Bess or 
Hero ?” he asked. 

“ I will not ride to-day,” she answered, look- 
ing quietly in his face. 


28 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


For a moment there was a triangular silence, 
so to speak. Mr. Melborn moved uneasily on 
his chair at the fireplace and feebly cleared his 
throat; Claude Levin bit his already scanty 
moustache and looked beyond the window; 
Alvia also looked out from hers. The Virginia 
creeper still climbed and smiled; its graceful 
shadow on the porch floor scarcely quivered, the 
air of this autumn morning was so peaceful and 
unobtrusive. The windows, hut recently a wel- 
come shelter from storm and chill, were open 
now to the grateful outside air, and very gently 
it floated in, laden with the influence of sunshine : 
it was a touch of Indian summer. As Alvia 
looked beyond the window she was thinking in 
some vague way that Claude Levin, though look- 
ing at the same objects, saw not the same things 
with herself. There was no union of spirit, no 
affinity, no congeniality of soul between them. 
Of this she had never been better aware than on 
this morning. Presently Levin said, — 

“ I came out purposely to have an early ride 
with you, the day is so fine.” 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 29 

“ I am sorry,” said Alvia, “ but you will not 
let my remaining at home spoil your ride, I 
trust?” 

Her cousin looked at her keenly. 

“ If you think I am going without you, you 
are mistaken, my dear,” he replied. 

The words were simple enough, would have 
been natural enough from some men ; to Alvia, 
however, they implied much ; the motive under 
that cool manner and slightly curling moustache 
was as visible to her as though his heart, his 
desire, were something material and lying upon 
the surface. Alvia longed to go to her own 
room ; had it not been for her love of her father 
she would have done so, leaving her guest to 
his own entertainment. But she stayed below- 
stairs; and if her ears heard every passing train, 
at least her eyes did not betray the fact. 

The day wore on, the perfect autumn day. 
How and then a leaf fell peacefully, quietly, to 
the ground ; golden sunlight surrounded them ; 
the air was still. What a day to dream in ! 

But Mr. Melborn was restless, Alvia unusually 
3 * 


30 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


silent, Levin unusually constant with his pres- 
ence. There was no ride taken; the horses 
looked contentedly from the stable windows 
over a field of golden-rod. In the afternoon 
the three sat on the broad side-veranda where 
honeysuckle and rose-vines threw their flicker- 
ing pictures on the floor. Occasionally an acorn 
dropped upon the roof above ; the day seemed 
eventless. But sometimes the greatest events 
are negative. Was it simply the quiet, or the 
lengthening shades of evening, that brought a 
deeper and a deeper shade into Alvia’s eyes as 
the day wore on toward its close ? 

No letter! No footstep up the gravel! 
Nothing seemed to break the stillness but an oc- 
casional neigh from the stable. Perchance she 
heard a faint, far-off echo of other horses’ hoofs. 
Perchance, a faint far-off aroma of another 
autumn evening stole over her senses. Even 
the evening wore away, hut Claude Levin re- 
mained. Mr. Melborn felt tbe air of sometbine: 
unusual about him, but he was ignorant of its 
source. At ten o’clock, however, Mr. Levin 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 31 

seemed satisfied with himself, with the hour, 
and with his day’s performance. As the clock 
struck, he took an abrupt departure. 

Alvia lingered with her father till he went to 
his room, and then she stole out to the piazza. 
She wanted the night to lay its strong, calm 
hand upon her heart. She moved quietly along 
to the side of the house farthest from her 
father’s room. Two porch rockers were stand- 
ing there : she dropped into one. In the other 
Richard Blessington have been sitting, — 

Richard Blessiugton, — great, strong, manly, true- 
hearted ! 

Whether he and Alvia chanced to both be 
lonely at that hour, it is certain Claude Levin 
was not, who, by the lamp in his room, seemed 
to have a most absorbing companion. The 
letter was not long, but he read it many times 
and his black eyes gleamed. Blessingtoii’s eyes 
did not gleam that night; there seemed little 
lustre and life about them. At the moment that 
Claude Levin was gloating over the possession 
of the letter, and Alvia was sitting alone in the 


32 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


night, Blessington was sitting with quiet exterior 
in the office of a hotel. Perhaps there had been 
some delay about the telegram he had asked 
for, — surely, surely, Alvia Meibom’s eyes had 
looked into his with the deepest kindness on 
the night before ; it was late before Blessington 
closed his own and made some attempt to rest. 

On the Mel born piazza Alvia sat very still, — 
there was an expression of pain on her usually 
smooth brow, — -this was all. How quiet and 
cool the night! She wanted to listen to its 
voice only, putting away her own thoughts. 
Again she looked among the deeps of stars and 
heard their message, — hope, promise. But the 
fulfilment! Might it not be as far oflf as the 
stars themselves ? 

On the morrow' the day was dull and clouded. 
Little scurries of fallen leaves drifted past the 
Melborn library wdndows. There was no sil- 
houette of the Virginia creeper weaving on the 
porch floor, there was neither high-light nor 
shadow, only a dull, expressionless grey. But 
Alvia lifted the same face that day to her father 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 33 

that she did on other days; a face in all its 
gentleness strong to bear and suffer for one she 
loved; and days and outward circumstances 
could make no change in it. But each time 
the postman stopped her color changed a little 
and her eyes went often along the path toward 
the station. ITo letter ! No footstep on the 
gravel ! The day faded away — and the autumn 
— and the winter. 

But one blessing, at least, came to her in that 
long, dull winter : it was the increased indiffer- 
ence that had, for a year or more, shown some- 
thing of itself toward her in her Cousin Claude. 
It had never been a grief to her, but now it had 
assumed the shape of something positive, — the 
shape of blessing ; and now, though fresh sorrow 
had given fresh pathos to her face quite unaware 
to herself, one might also detect something akin 
to a peaceful joy half hid in her tender eyes. Her 
woman’s faith was strong when it was reached. 
It was not easily reached, it is true, but it had 
been touched by Richard Blessington. After 
what his eyes had said to her on the fateful 


34 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


night of the concert she felt only that he was 
true, however false were circumstances. His 
eyes had told her something, and they were 
eyes she could not doubt. She could hear any 
burden now, even though she must carry it to 
the end of the journey, to the very border of 
that other, truer land. Ay, he loved her ; she 
could wait and wait through all things, yes, wait 
with patience; for Claude, she now believed, 
would never claim the fulfilment of her prom- 
ise. If loneliness were only certain to be the 
worst portion of her lot ! But surely, surely 
release must come; she was taking no pains 
to conceal from Claude the true attitude of her 
heart toward him. 

But was it so with Blessington ? Did he hold 
also in his heart that great quieting patience that 
is born of faith? Woman is horn to endure, hut 
man is but a poor lover if he be not an impa- 
tient one; or, rather, both patient and impatient 
he should be; and Bichard Blessington was not 
a poor lover. But even after the night of the 
concert, after the songs he knew were sung to 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 35 

him, could he understand her yet ? For there 
came no answer to his letter. With Alvia, days 
and weeks dragged their length away with the 
new happiness, or the old one revived, springing 
up in her heart amid much that bore to her little 
fruitage but discomfort. The continued silence, 
the separation, yes, — they were hard enough to 
hear, but it was different from the silence of the 
past. Something detained him, — perhaps there 
was some misunderstanding, — but he loved her 
still. She was sure of this ; Alvia, who was so 
slow to believe a man admired her. She be- 
lieved it not because of any overweening self- 
satisfaction, but because she believed in Eichard 
Blessington, believed the expression in his eyes, 
believed in its endurance and depth, as well as 
in its honesty of the moment. In the midst of 
silence, absence, perplexity, her belief blessed 
her, and threw a color of its own into the win- 
ter sunshine. She remembered the first terri- 
ble days when there had been silence between 
them, — when she had believed his love to be 
estranged : surely, life was better now. 


36 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


But with the spring, instead of deliverance, 
Levin’s attentions blossomed anew like the trees 
in the meadow. As to accounting for his changes 
of mood, Alvia had long since given up the effort. 

Blessington was over ten years Alvia’s senior, 
hut though Levin was at least five years Bles- 
sington’s junior, he was an older man in ways 
that are undesirable. ITo length of time or 
stress of temptation would place Bichard Bles- 
sington on a footing with Claude Levin. Since 
Levin had succeeded in placing his ring on 
Alvia’s finger the unpleasant traits in his nature 
had been less carefully restrained in her pres- 
ence. But now, if there were one trace of man- 
liness in his character, he could not exact from 
his cousin the fulfilment of that promise so long 
delayed, and carried now with such ill-concealed 
reluctance. Such were Alvia’s thoughts; her 
nature could understand nothing less. But re- 
luctance was a weak word indeed to express 
the true feeling of her heart. Each day she 
looked for the act of civility, she would not say 
generosity, that she felt must be so easy to 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


37 


Claude after the indifference he had been capa- 
ble so often of showing her. 

Each day brought the sunshine a little longer, 
brought the buds and blossoms about them a lit- 
tle fuller, but they were days that brought pallor 
instead of roses into Alvia’s cheeks. Perplex- 
ity deepened into trouble in her father’s heart. 
Ever since that strange day when Alvia’s eyes 
had carried their unwonted gladness in the morn- 
ing, their unwonted sadness at night, a shadow 
had in some way seemed to deepen about 
Mr. Meibom’s life. Once he had approached 
the subject of Levin to his daughter; how 
bravely she had answered him, what struggle 
had been below the calm exterior, only her own 
heart knew. And now Claude insisted upon the 
appointment of their wedding-day, and the light 
faded from Alvia’s eyes. One May morning she 
went slowly down the garden walk and bent her 
steps toward the meadows beyond the stable. 
Gypsy bounded and barked and followed at her 
heels. Such a delightful occurrence: a walk 
with the gentle Miss Alvia, and even beyond the 
4 


38 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


little gate at the end of the garden ; that para- 
dise at which her youthful eyes had often looked 
between the palings with the ardent desire of 
puppyhood; but now her mistress had really 
lifted the latch, was truly passing through, and 
to say that Gypsy was decorously waiting for an 
invitation, or was even passing through this im- 
portant portal in the rear of the procession, 
would, I fear, be a little ‘‘ out of drawing.” There 
being no senior dogs within view, Gypsy bravely 
rolled and scampered and tumbled along in the 
van, and barked with equal spirit at ox-carts, 
cats, or fallen apple-bloom ; for life was full of 
youth and bliss that morning to Gypsy; she 
scarcely missed the absent sympathy of her mis- 
tress. Once or twice her cold little nose impor- 
tuned Alvia’s listless hand for a caress, which 
from habit was given, but given mechanically. 

“ Miss Alvy do be mighty gentle t’ ebery- 
thing,” some one muttered, looking from the 
kitchen window. Perhaps the comment was 
not so inharmonious, for Alvia was indeed gen- 
tle from might, from strength of heart ; hers was 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


39 


not the gentleness of weakness. To-day she 
was saying over to herself, “ I must let it drift ; 
there is no other course open.” 

Ah, drift ; hut how terrible the drifting ! 
Yes, it was cruel work, with Claude’s caresses 
worse than a matter of indifference to her now ; 
but she could not refuse them with his ring 
upon her finger. 

But it was not the holding of any false posi- 
tion toward Levin, nor his overtures to herself, 
which were now positively repugnant to her, 
that troubled her most; it was the loyalty in her 
heart to Blessington that gave her the keenest 
pain in the position that she held. She could 
even smile through her own personal annoyance; 
but Alvia was a woman that could not smile 
through anything she felt to be a sacrilege 
against one who called forth the deepest respect 
and love of her nature. Perhaps, as it was, she 
need not have troubled so much concerning this 
part of her most unfortunate position, as she was 
so far from yielding any of her spirit to Levin ; 
he might as well have touched the hand or lips 


40 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


of a marble statue ; he would have received as 
much response. 

When Alvia returned that morning from her 
walk worse things awaited her. Levin was sit- 
ting in the library with her father; they were 
both silent as she entered the room. Presently 
Levin asked her to go with him ‘to the parlor. 
He might have seen, had he chosen to look, the 
face with which Alvia complied ; but he knew 
that she would comply, and he knew the expres- 
sion that would settle on her face ; looking at 
her would be superfluous; why should he? And 
now in the broad old parlor with its dusky cor- 
ners, the same parlor that had arisen like a 
phantom before the memory of Richard Bles- 
sington, Claude Levin insisted, and angrily at 
last, for the definite appointment of his mar- 
riage wdth Alvia. She pleaded with all the for- 
bearance and gentleness at her command, but 
this time in vain. While the spring air stole 
into the dim room as it had done years before, 
she looked into the dark eyes that she did not 
love, and pleaded, “ Oh, Claude, I am not well ; 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


41 


this once, at least, give me a little time.” He 
posed his lithe figure against the side of the 
door, and Alvia felt rather than saw his dark 
gaze, fiery, but not with love, fixed upon her. 

A little timeP^hQ answered, with the sneer 
that was growing more frequent with him of 
late. A little more time, I imagine, to see if 
you cannot yet recall Sir Richard Blessington.” 

It was the first time he had ever essayed to men- 
tion to her Blessington’s name since his reference 
to him long in the past. Alvia stood at her full 
height, her eyes looking unfiinchingly into 
Levin’s. All her impulse was to return to him 
an intensely quiet yes,” with his ring ; but a 
vision of thin, white hair passed before her. 
She simply looked in Levin’s eye with unwonted 
fire in her own; she only leaned against the 
other door-post, raising a coolly defiant face to 
the man she was to marry ; she only grew white 
to the lips, while the light grew more brilliant 
in her eyes ; she only waited for some manly re- 
lease, — waited, — but his lips opened not — nor did 
hers. 


4 * 


42 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


At last, turning away, with slow and measured 
tread she ascended the stairs to her room. 

When she came to luncheon her face was the 
same as on other days, her manner, too, was the 
same, and through her strong self-possession one 
could scarcely have observed any change in her 
voice. Levin remained to luncheon, and di- 
rectly afterward Alvia returned to her room. 
She sat long by the window, even after Levin’s 
figure had retreated down the walk toward the 
station. 

Again it was near the sunset hour, again the 
sun was shining on the maple. She knelt by 
the casement. Would God help her, or must 
she only try to do the best she could ? 

No prayer is so availing as good and wise 
action, and there are times when the best act is 
simply to wait. This Alvia felt, and her one 
hope now was for respite. She could postpone 
— she must postpone, — beyond this, as matters 
were, she could do nothing; beyond this she 
dared not even think. 

Her soul grew more quiet, looking out on the 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


43 


fading day ; her eyes rested on the maple. On 
the evening the story opened, its sunlit leaves 
had held for her but the pensive light of memory; 
to-night a golden glamour seemed to hover about 
the tree that was not altogether of the sunlight ; 
surely it was a glamour of hope ; some reflection 
from her own spirit mingling with the sunshine 
on the tree. Yes, some hope must still be lin- 
gering in her heart. At least, like a great burst 
of light, had come upon her this late belief that 
Blessington loved her. The love of Richard 
Blessington ! She felt it to be something so 
grand and great that in its presence time, with 
all its sad possibilities and perplexities, seemed to 
dwindle away and eternity seemed to spread its 
everlasting light about her. But it was only for 
a moment that she could live in such an uplift- 
ing of spirit above mortality, and the shadow of 
to-day and to-morrow and days to come fell 
upon her again. 

Alvia excused herself from dinner, — her head 
was aching; of the heartache it was not neces- 
sary to speak. As to her father, her brother’s 


44 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

presence could relieve his evening meal of soli- 
tude. 

At last, late into the May night, when she 
arose from the window, her spirit felt a touch of 
rest: the stillness and the coolness beyond it 
had refreshed her ; she had formed a plan for at 
least some further reprieve. 

It was Alvia’s custom to look for her father 
before breakfast. On the following morning she 
found him on the vine-covered piazza in the 
fresh air of May and early day. 

‘‘ Life ought to be happy, father, on days like 
this,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, 
— “ days when the airs are gentle and the blos- 
soms filled with dew and perfume and sun- 
shine.” 

“You speak doubtfully, my child,” said the 
old man, “ as though, in spite of the ‘ ought,’ 
sometimes they are not.” 

She looked wistfully in his face, but the 
thought in her heart was for him, not for her- 
self. She was thinking how hard it must be for 
failing powers like his to see the light in any- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL.. 45 

thing. She had wondered often at the patient 
cheerfulness of the old. “It must be because 
even there the Great Power is leading them,” 
she thought. After a moment she answered 
him, “I think we are happy, are we not? be- 
cause God is God, — and we can trust him still, 
both for the now and for the forever.” It was 
not at all what she had intended saying when 
she came to the porch ; somehow her father’s 
fading hair against the young flowers of May 
had taken all thought of herself away. He put 
his arm about her and walked, she thought, 
more tenderly than ever with her to the break- 
fast-table, and Alvia was even more than usually 
watchful about his comfort there. 

But when breakfast tvas over she said, 
“ Would you miss me so very much, father, if I 
should take a little trip southward with Mammy? 
Will you let me send for Cousin Maria to stay 
with you and Harry? for I know you do not 
care to go farther South at this season. It may 
seem very foolish, but I feel as if a little run to 
Savannah would do me — good — -just now. We 


46 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


can go to our old hotel, you know, where we are 
so well known, — what do you think of it, father 

Mr. Melborn was silent a moment before an- 
swering, “ No, child, no ; I will not think it too 
foolish; you shall go. You have friends there, 
and you can tell them I sent you for a change, 
with Mammy.” And thus it was settled, the 
southward trip. 

A trip with just the old black Mammy,” 
who had been her nurse in infancy and her 
faithful guardian angel in later days. Smile 
not! for Mammy, dark and swarthy; Mammy, 
with wool beneath her yellow bandanna growing 
whiter day by day; Mammy, with hips and 
heels beyond the lines of symmetry; Mammy, 
with horny hands and walk ungainly; dear old 
Mammy 1 with her faithful, unselfish heart, was 
a whiter angel in the sight of God than many of 
earth’s fairer daughters. 

So Alvia, with the gentle, faithful Mammy, 
travelled southward. At evening the lights of 
Savannah twinkled into sight, and their little 
journey was done. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 47 

There, mid softer air and stranger scenes, 
Alvia sought to forget that life was real, — at 
least, to forget the realities of her own life for a 
little time. 

She was well known at the hotel where they 
stayed, and she felt she could better rest her 
worn and wearied spirit with only Mammy to 
care for her, but never to intrude nor trouble her. 

A tall Southerner, handsome, with dark and 
liquid eyes, sat with his sister at the same table 
with Alvia. They had taken four meals to- 
gether, and a glance of warm interest from the 
dark-eyed stranger fell frequently upon her; he 
would have cared to linger near her, unconscious 
as she was of his interest. There was ever an 
unconscious innocence, an air of delicate refine- 
ment around Alvia Melborn which attracted as 
the air about a rose. But Alvia was as indifier- 
ent to men — as such — as the veriest rose in the 
garden. 

She did not reckon upon the possibilities of 
every masculine individual that confronted her, 
she did not strive to lay every masculine heart, 


48 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

or it were better to say fancy, at her own indi- 
vidual feet ; and far, far was she from possess- 
ing that freedom toward masculine society, that 
want of womanly retirement, which disgraces 
rather than graces so much of womanhood. How 
many of the ‘‘ buds” as well as “ roses” of 
society might look a little more to the laurels 
of their feminine dignity and lose nothing of 
their charm ! But if the woman of the country 
makes the man, just as surely is the man 
responsible for its tj’pe of womanhood. 

The stranger confronting Alvia was aware of 
her type, and aware that it was an exceptional 
one, after sitting as her vis-a-vis but for one day. 
He cared much for a nearer acquaintance. 

In the evening Alvia sat in her own quiet 
chamber, with Mammy softly brushing her hair. 
As yet she had not cared to announce her arrival 
to any friends in Savannah. Her spirit, so 
tossed and weary, almost unto death, she fain 
would rest a little and guard from any ungentle 
touch. Old Mammy’s rare nature never pressed 
sorely on a wound. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 49 

How quiet the room and the occupants ! even 
the street sounds seemed to float in through the 
window in a lazy, listless way. Surely just then 
of all times any unusual event seemed farthest 
ofl* and most unlikely. Yet it may have been 
that in the very air the strangeness of some 
approaching and most peculiar occurrence made 
itself felt. 

At least, as the evening wore on, a restlessness 
took possession of Alvia. 

In general she possessed her own moods, but 
now, in spite of herself, the mood took posses- 
sion of her. 

For once she would brave the night alone; 
for once she would take the freedom of a man ; 
for once she would breathe in solitude under the 
stars. 

She donned hat and mantle and started forth. 
In her vague unrestfulness she heeded not the 
loneliness of the streets; the more retired and 
isolated, the more they invited her footsteps. 
On and on she walked in the fair June night, 
unheeding, unfearing. She traversed long lanes 
c d 5 


50 ^ SKETCH IN THE WEAL, 

beyond the city unconscious of fatigue. Some 
force, beyond any clearly-defined motive, seemed 
to impel her : she only felt in some dreamy way 
that she was getting away from the old life with 
its troubles, getting away into some moonlit 
sphere of calm and peace. An impression held 
her that the farther she walked, the farther she 
could wander from herself, that self that she 
knew not how to dispose of now. Thus she 
passed along by lonely fields and fences, seeing 
nothing to fear, feeling nothing but the loveli- 
ness of God’s summer night. 

Suddenly she found herself before the gates of 
the silent Buenaventura, Savannah’s unrivalled 
resting-place for the dead. 

She pushed the latch and entered. Before her 
stretched its moonlit aisles, aisles of solemn 
grandeur. The broad avenue of entrance led 
back from the gate, its stately lines of live-oaks 
draped with Spanish moss. Down the avenue 
the moonlight was streaming, in pale, super- 
natural glory, and the shadows were dark and 
deep on either side beneath the trees. Long, 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


51 


heavy fringes of moss swayed in the moonlight 
and in the shadow, while brooding over all was 
the enchantment of silence. At the end of the 
avenue, as though the goal to which it would 
lead, the full-orhed silver moon confronted her, 
like some heavenly isle of peace. Alvia faltered 
not ; straight as though upon a mystic pathway 
to the gate of heaven she followed the noiseless 
street, toward the moon, while the moss and the 
shadows swayed silently about her. It was a 
street upon which others had indeed been borne 
to heaven’s gate, if heaven be to lie beneath the 
wind-swept grasses, — to close the eyes upon the 
pains of living, — to close the eyes and rest. 

Peace seemed to brood in the air of Buena- 
ventura. At that time so few were its monu- 
ments and graves that, after passing the Gaston 
mausoleum at the entrance, one would scarcely, 
along the central aisle, have known the place to 
be a cemetery. 

Amid the silent beauty Alvia walked on. Sil- 
very, calm, and peaceful the moon hung before 
her and threw its flood of light down the ave- 


52 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

nue, whitening her face and hands, the sandy 
path before her, and silvering the leaves of the 
live-oaks. How soft the air of this mystic place, 
stealing in and out among the trees and shad- 
ows ! how fragrant with night-distilled aroma ! 
A dark, moon-touched grove stood on either 
side behind the flanking avenue of oaks. Ah, 
here, — in the stillness, — under the moonlight 
and under the waving moss, might there not be 
rest? She sought with an almost supernatural 
hope a spot that she remembered. 

“ It was away, way back in the weary years” 

that she had been there, light and free of heart, 
with her mother, whose face had long been num- 
bered among the saints above. The spot was 
marked for Alvia by loving words once spoken 
there by that mother now in heaven. Was there 
in all the cemetery a fairer monument, although 
unseen ? How, in childhood, those warm, pro- 
tecting arms had wound about her, had drawn 
her to the mother-heart ! How tender the hands 
that had smoothed back the ringlets from her 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 53 

forehead! how fond the kisses that she had felt 
upon her brow! She fain would be a child 
again. 

When she reached the spot she sought, in the 
overwrought state of her nerves she knelt upon 
the sandy ground beneath the live-oak and spoke 
aloud in the solitude, “Mother! — mother!’’ 
But only the moon looked quietly down upon 
her, as it had looked far back in childish days 
when that mother’s eyes had watched it close 
beside her own. 

J^'ot a voice fell from the stillness, not a whis- 
per in the old familiar place. 

Ay, her heart must cry, with St. Augustine’s 
of old, “ The dead cannot return.” 

But the night laid its cool hand upon Alvia’s 
broAV and its soothing quiet upon her heart; 
the moss waved softly above her, and at last her 
sobbing lost itself in sleep. 

Think not, Alvia, the spirit your heart called 
after was far away because unheard, unseen : 
through the waving moss she loved so well 
perhaps she reached you, and through the 


54 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


starry stillness of the night. The moss waved 
on, the weird moonlight and shadows shim- 
mered over her, and amid the strange night- 
beauty of Buenaventura Alvia peacefully slept. 

If we may consider Alvia as spirit number 
one, having issued silently and alone from the 
hotel and wended her way mysteriously toward 
the cemetery, then we may proceed to remark 
upon another as spirit number two, issuing also 
silently and alone from the same hotel, and turn- 
ing its footsteps in the direction of spirit number 
one. JS’umber two had kept number one in 
sight, but always with the same space between 
them, making no effort to lessen it. ITumber 
two had been apparently less brave than number 
one, shying at the shadows along the way. 

But, stranger still, a third spirit, also silent 
and alone, emerged from the same hotel, turning 
its footsteps also toward the waving moss and 
shadows of the moonlit Buenaventura. The 
third spirit was farther in the rear, in fact quite 
out of sight of numbers one and two, and appar- 
ently had no connection with them whatever. A 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


55 


very tall and manly spirit was number three, 
with broad shoulders and fine-cut features. It 
walked among the shadows with free, firm, 
fearless tread. 

So when Alvia awoke from her little slumber 
beneath the live-oak it is not perhaps so strange 
that her eyes fell upon some one bending above 
her. 

Was she, like Kathleen of the song, “ ’Twixt 
waking and sleeping?” She feared to move 
lest the vision be dispelled, — the vision of 
Kichard Blessington. 

Miss Alvy ! How dis yere ole creetur come 
to look for yo yeah in the middle ob de night is 
yo supposin’ ?” 

In the next breath Mammy exclaimed, “ De 
Lohd — bress — my — soul ! ef dar ain’t, a-standin’ 
right dar in his own skin. Mars Bressington ! 
I leaves yo two bofe honies to yosefs.” 

Mammy had waited patiently among the 
shadows while ‘‘ Miss Alvy” had been so quiet 
under the tree, for she understood well that 
“ Miss Alvy” wanted to be alone, but upon see- 


56 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


ing the form of spirit number three emerge 
from other shadows she had hastened forward to 
her sleeping charge. 

And now her figure retreated among the 
shades whence it had appeared. She muttered, 
by way of companionship, as she went along the 
weird and gruesome way, — 

“ De Lohd hress Mars Bressington ! Ole 
Mammy doan run in de nights dis way jis fur 
silbeh, hut ole Mammy know who gib her 
silbeh, jis de same. N’ebeh see silbeh from Mars 
Claude, — no mo’n ef he was a bawn niggah. 
Don’t care fur Mars Claude fur nuflan , — he 
care nuff fur his owui sef without oder folks 
a-troublin’ ’bout him. Mars Bressington, he 
nebeh done forgit poor ole Mammy. I’d nebeh 
do no disturbin’ oh two such chilluns as Miss 
Alvy and Mars Bressington ; I tote dese ole 
hones home. But how I gits aroun’ de big 
white stone dar by de gate? I’s wish to mas- 
sies sho’ nuflt* dere wasn’t no white stone dar to- 
night. I reckons I says a little pra’r an’ runs.” 

Mammy’s sudden appearance had reassured 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 57 

Alvia and Blessington that, however peculiar, 
there was nothing supernatural about their mid- 
night meeting in so strange a place. 

Upon Mammy’s advent Blessington had re- 
treated a few paces from Alvia, who had raised 
herself to a sitting posture; and thus, looking 
earnestly in each other’s face, they remained 
motionless, like fairy figures of childish story 
in some enchanted spot. 

Then, in a moment, he was close before her, 
holding in his strong, firm grasp her unresisting 
hands. Their warm pressure thrilled her being. 
Ah, Claude Levin! under the trees in Buena- 
ventura stands a woman who is no marble statue 
to-night. 

The moss waved on, and the moon still smiled 
her silvery smile between the branches of live- 
oak, hut there was a new and different touch 
now upon the spell of the place. 

Blessington drew Alvia to a seat beside him 
on the sandy ground. Both were trembling, 
neither could speak. Then his deep, rich voice 
uttered just the one word, “Alvia 1” He looked 


58 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

into her eyes as he spoke, until her own filled 
slowly with tears and the crimson came to her 
cheek and stayed there. Still, she neither moved 
nor spoke. 

“ Alvia,” he said, at last, “ let me hear your 
voice again. Alvia, — my one love for all these 
years !” 

Ah, the strong and tender tones ! The firm, 
warm hand that trembled a little upon her own ! 
Claude Levin — her trouble — seemed now to be 
melting away to a dream, — some dread night- 
mare from which she could awake : yet she was 
not altogether free from its thrall ; for answer 
to him tears that she bent her head to conceal 
dropped on his hand, still firmly holding hers. 
While she answered not, his eye fell for the first 
time on the ring upon her finger. 

“ Is it this ?” he asked, quickly, and a press- 
ure from her hand was answer enough, — all the 
answer that she could give. The happy blood 
rushed back to his heart. He was silent, silent 
as the shades of Buenaventura, for had not the 
shadow again fallen upon his life? Upon that 


A SKETCH IN THE WEAL. 


59 


manly heart, so strong, so true, so tender! 
Would the angels let it be unblessed while throw- 
ing gifts so rare and sweet to those less worthy ? 

There had been a day when Richard Blessing- 
ton would have arisen and walked away, for this 
heart of his so strong and true was as sensitive 
as a woman’s. 

1^0 two men could diverge more in character, 
in temperament, than Blessington and Levin. 

Blessington’s sensibilities were as fine to-night 
as in the years gone by, but he knew better how 
to understand the woman by his side. He knew 
beyond all doubting that Alvia Melborn was 
true; that the soul of her eyes was sincere; that 
they could not hold those depths for more than 
one; though he was none the less aware that 
the eyes of many women could. Ho, to-night 
he did not walk away. 

Alvia,” he said, I believe that you love me, 
I see it, feel it, at last. At least you do not 
wear a marriage ring, thank God 1 Ho, Alvia, 
you are mine , — by the right of love.” 

And so, with the sorrow half hushed within 


60 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


her heart, she told her story, while a roaming 
breeze sang its requiem among the trees above 
the dead. 

A broken engagement, when she loved him, 
how easy a thing ! This was the drift of Bles- 
sington’s thought, but the tale had not yet been 
all told. When it had been he was paler. 

“ Alvia,’’ he said, — there was more tenderness 
in simply her name, from him, than in a pro- 
fusion of adjectives from other men, — you do 
not belong to any one hut me;” and he bent 
his face, that face so strong, so sweet, near hers 
and brushed away her tears. 

They talked a little of the strange fate that 
had brought them both to Savannah and had led 
both their footsteps on that moonlit June night 
to the mystic beauty and silence of Buenaven- 
tura. Had not some faithful spirit bent in pity 
to guide them ? 

“The moon is getting low,” said Alvia; “I 
have been in Paradise, but we must leave it.” 

“Yes,” he answered, “you are right. We will 
go now, but we will come again to-morrow.” 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


61 


Ah, — to-morrow! It was one of those fair 

to-morrows that never come. 

He drew her hand within his arm : it did not 
rest grudgingly upon his sleeve as it was wont 
to do upon Levin’s, and the arm it rested upon 
was less indifferent to its presence. Along the 
broad avenue there was still moonlight; still 
swaying moss and wavering shadow; still the 
grand, solemn vista of live-oaks; still soft air, 
aroma-laden ; still the enchanting stillness amid 
the moonlight, broken now by the low, deep 
tones of Blessington. Ah, what music ! floating 
on the silvery June night after silence, absence, 
of years. The beauty about them now only 
vaguely impressed either, so absorbed was each 
in the presence of the other; in the reminis- 
cences of days agone; in the bliss of renewed 
faith; of seeing, of hearing, of touching one 
another once again. And thus they passed 
through the gate into a more prosaic world, 
unaware that Buenaventura would he to them 
henceforward as the memory of a dream. 


6 


62 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


CHAPTER III. 

The next morning Blessington waited in vain 
for Alvia’s appearance. After at last a brief and 
solitary breakfast, he paced the hotel piazza. 
How like a dream the night before ! Buenaven- 
tura itself in the moonlight was sufficiently 
dreamlike, but his strange meeting there with 
Alvia, the words she had spoken, the story her 
eyes had told him, the touch of her hand, even 
the abrupt ending, the incompleteness of it all, 
— how dreamlike it seemed in the broad glare 
of day and no Alvia within range of his vision ! 
Perhaps — it was a dream; no, he was too 
strong to entertain this thought; but perhaps 
she had gone; perhaps something, incompre- 
hensible to him, had, as had always happened, 
taken her from him. But now it could not be 
again as it had been before. How, after Buena- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


63 


ventura, he could write to her, he could go to 
her if the mails should play him false. ITo, at 
least it should never be again as it had been be- 
fore. He had learned a lesson of life ; he could 
be a touch less proud, less delicate, and lose no 
self-respect. He would understand more fully 
that it was a man’s prerogative to speak, — that 
he need not count overture of his an intrusion 
until he received such intimation very directly 
and beyond all question from the woman he 
addressed. As his thought carried him to this 
point of reflection he met at his turn upon the 
piazza a somewhat diminutive figure hurrying 
toward him. Around its head was neatly and 
tightly bound a yellow bandanna. This little 
figure, dark and swarthy, might have been the 
possessor of some magic wand so suddenly did 
her appearance change to Blessington the aspect 
of the day. He saw for the first time since the 
breakfast hour that the sun was shining, that the 
day was very fair. But Mammy’s words, when 
she was near enough to speak, carried with them 
another and a diflerent spell. 


64 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“ Miss Alvy ! Mars Bressington, Miss Alvy done 
git sick ; Miss Alvy mighty pohly. When I done 
git in to her dis mohnin’, soon in de mohnin’, I 
seed Miss Alvy done been huhiiin’ up wid de fevah 
all de night. I’s praisin’ de Lohd dat Mars Brea- 
sington here, fur to help ole Mammy what to do. 
I ain’t kin write, eben to marsa. Miss Alvy done 
larn me, an’ larn me, hut I ain’t larn yit.” 

The excitement of the night before, crown- 
ing the strain that had been upon her nerves, 
had proved too much for Alvia, in addition to 
the long walk to Buenaventura. She was in- 
deed very ill with fever, though Blessington had 
not allowed her to walk home on the previous 
night. In fact, all three of the spirits that had 
issued so silently from the hotel and bent their 
mysterious steps toward the cemetery, seeming 
almost to an observer to belong to another 
sphere, had been glad upon their return to avail 
themselves of the first very terrestrial street-car 
they encountered, thus at least lessening their 
pedestrian journey home. 

Blessington was not long in obtaining Savan- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 05 

nah’s best physician, but the nurse, or it were 
better to say, trained attendant, he engaged 
with much misgiving. If he could but go to 
Alvia’s side and consign the face of this 
stranger for the most part to the adjoining 
room ! Loving care, a loving presence, was what 
she needed, what his heart fain would give to 
her, but this could not be, under existing cir- 
cumstances ; and the thought of what the fever 
might do was now a new and dread spectre be- 
fore him. It went bitterly against him, her lying 
there with stranger care about her, even though 
she had the faithful Mammy. And was he not 
right? He had that keen perception of the 
needs of others which is attuned in one’s nature 
only by the heart. The full import of the verb 
“ to nurse” how few appreciate ! There are 
some who can wait upon, can care for strangers, 
with a very considerable amount of fidelity and 
kindness (how many so-called trained nurses 
do not do even this !) ; but nothing short of love 
can nurse. 

Late that evening Blessington paced the 


66 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


streets; the result being that on the following 
day an elderly lady in a more northern latitude 
was electrified by the, to her, unwonted appari- 
tion of a telegram. Her fingers trembled a little 
as they broke the seal. An hour later her frail 
figure was stooping over a trunk that had expe- 
rienced as little travel as its owner. Sweet, 
loving, gentle Aunt Catharine! Blessington had 
carried the memory of her, too, across a stretch 
of years, and ascertained from Mammy that 
Alvia’s favorite relative was living still, and in 
the same old home. 

Mr. Melborn, he knew, w^as quite unable to 
come ; he could look for no help from him. 

On the following evening, waiting anxiously 
upon the station’s platform, somewhat nervous 
without response to his despatch, Blessington 
watched the train draw up. With every second 
of its approach his anxiety heightened in a most 
unreasonable ratio. If she should not come, — 
what then ? How could he go to Alvia ? And 
how could he stay away? But Claude Levin 
could stay away ! Claude Levin with his glow- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


67 


ing black eyes ! And what kind of fire must 
it be that kindled them ? !N’othing, ah, nothing 
that deserved the name of love. 

In a moment more, quite lost to all sensibili- 
ties save his great relief and his gratitude, he 
was stooping his manly figure to kiss a dear old 
lady of sixty-five. The meeting was no less of 
a relief to Aunt Catharine, for she had braved 
much for Alvia that she loved in venturing on 
this travel quite alone. She lifted her gentle, 
anxious eyes and took the kiss as it was given. 

And now, with Aunt Catharine there, Bles- 
sington might sometimes sit by the side of Alvia. 

So, with the trained attendant in the back- 
ground as an auxiliary merely, Alvia Melborn 
was nursed, — nursed with loving kindness and 
gentle ways, nursed both by wisdom and devo- 
tion; for Richard Blessington’s was a nature 
attuned exquisitely to sympathy with others 
while overfiowing with manliness and spiritual 
strength. 

The touch of his hand soothed Alvia in her 
delirium when all else failed. His ever-watch- 


03 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

ful and judicious care anticipated her every need 
both of body and of spirit; for there is no 
nursing of the body without nursing of the 
spirit with it ; though, it is true, the forces of 
nature ofttimes struggle through in spite of ad- 
verse surroundings; but there was at least one 
woman in Savannah that was nursed. 

As the sunsets one by one were dropping 
down the west, Blessington watched them with 
sore forebodings in his heart. When the eyes, 
toward which he carried a fresh hope in his 
breast with each rising sun, would fail to recog- 
nize him as the days passed on, his spirit fal- 
tered, though never his faithfulness and care. 
Was something always to take her from him? 
Ah, now was it hard indeed to keep heart and 
be brave before those helpless, unconscious eyes. 
Yet, amid the blank that met him day by day, 
he saw, and not without a quicker throbbing of 
the heart, that Alvia was a little better, a little 
quieter when he was near, and day after day 
found Blessington approaching Alvia’s bedside 
more gently than a woman. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


69 


Through the sheer summer curtains the light 
stole tenderly in, but it was a phantom, a faint 
material reflection only, of the tenderness of 
light in Blessington’s eyes. Softly the summer 
breeze crept in, passing with soothing caress 
over Alvia’s cheek and brow, but immeasurably 
gentler was the impression that reached her 
spirit through that strong yet tender hand that 
touched her own. Why not come back to life 
with his spirit to transmit to hers life, love, 
hope ? 

Aunt Catharine was another in whom the 
genius for nursing was born, and then, she too 
loved Alvia. Her eyes, that were soft hazel, 
never failed in their gentle expression, neither 
did her unselfishness ever flag. What she gave 
of herself, of her untiring, loving patience, she 
gave with the grace of spontaneous giving, and 
with the ornament of unconsciousness. , The 
spirit How much I am doing for you” never 
arose before the sufferer’s eyes, simply because it 
was not there to arise. 

Ah, beautiful indeed was the rare and gentle 


70 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Aunt Catharine ; beautiful with that beauty that 
fadeth not away. It was true her fragile figure 
was not so straight as in the days agone, and her 
mirror held before her a face that had lost its 
rounded outlines, wrinkles coining where dim- 
ples once had been. Ah, this growing old! 
But bravely, quietly, she lived her life amid its 
outward loss, and the kernel was the richer, the 
mellower, the sweeter. 

It was many weeks before Alvia was anything 
of herself, hut the balance turned at last toward 
this world. Her father had lived in a state of 
pitiful anxiety, which, however, had been re- 
lieved twice daily by telegrams from Blessing- 
ton. Mr. Melhorn had told Levin fully of his 
daughter’s illness, but for some reason that his 
saddened heart understood, if no other did, he 
had refrained from mentioning to him Blessing- 
ton’s name. 

It came as a boon to Blessington that Levin’s 
indifierent, selfish nature never prompted him to 
go to Alvia throughout her illness. Ah, cold 
and phlegmatic had she ever found him where 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


71 


real kindliness was concerned. Through the 
perils of her fever it had not been her affianced 
husband who had lingered near. While Bles- 
sington bent above her, Claude Levin’s ring had 
been upon her finger, but no Claude Levin by 
her side; only a few brief letters of inquiry 
from the man who was so determined to be her 
husband. Aunt Catharine had answered the 
letters in a somewhat dazed state of mind as to 
Levin and Blessington; but she knew Alvia; to 
Aunt Catharine this was sufficient. 

In the slow days of convalescence, half drowsy, 
half dreamy, Alvia was too weak to think. She 
took the sunshine that fell upon her as a flower 
might, living only by the day. There was no 
one to stand above her with cold, hard, half-crit- 
ical, wholly unsympathetic eyes. Ho one to re- 
ceive a little gruffiy some feebly-expressed need, 
— no atmosphere of impatience and antagonism 
so hard for weak and suflfering nerves to meet. 
Do so-called nurses ever realize how much 
strength must be taken from the sufl^erer to meet 
and endure unpleasant ways? Around Alvia 


72 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

was the atmosphere of sunny days, of summer 
breezes, of flowers sent by friendly hands, of 
love, and so the atmosphere of heaven. 

How fully she had realized that no platonic 
affection can make a perfect union between lover 
and lover, husband and wife, and that neither 
will such union be any more perfect if consti- 
tuted alone of mere passionate fancy! Fully 
she comprehended that one’s whole being must 
he stirred to its depths, one’s whole soul must 
be filled, satisfied in a complete admiration of 
the other, ever including respect. So, Blessing- 
ton and Alvia had touched one another, each 
looking to the other as to perfection. 

Alvia leaned upon Blessington’s manly 
strength, she leaned upon his strong spiritual- 
ity; every fibre of his being seemed ever to 
turn, from innate nobleness, to the generous, 
the strong, the gentle, the true. His physical 
personality was a knitting together of strength 
and grace, and one could read in his manly eye 
how lovely, how strong, the soul that dwelt 
within. Bichard Blessington was not narrow, 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 73 

he was good ; good from all noble and generous 
impulse, not good in action because he dared be 
nothing else. Blessington would have pleased 
Emerson, for his righteousness came spontane- 
ously from the depths of his soul as naturally, 
as unconstrainedly, as fragrance arises from the 
violet. 

And as to Alvia, in her pure and true woman- 
liness Blessington looked up to her. He recog- 
nized the deeps of her nature that he knew could 
answer even unto his own, leaving nothing want- 
ing to his love. He knew the high order of 
fealty her heart would tender to him could he 
take her to his own heart and life. All his ten- 
derness yearned to bless and protect her and to 
receive the blessing that her love would bestow. 

And Alvia loved Blessington with all the 
warmth and the depth and the passionate loyalty 
of her nature; with her whole heart she was 
leal and true to him, hut duty, she believed, 
bound her to a certain integrity toward Levin ; 
and hers was not a nature to drop its integrity, 
neither was it a nature to take the last ray of 


74 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


light from her old father’s dimming eye. But 
in spite of all, her whole being resisted this 
alliance to Levin, and her being was one of 
purest impulses. 

Even during her recovery she had been too ill 
for further conversation on the subject of her 
great perplexity. But those days of convales- 
cence had been to her a summer idyl. Come 
what would of darkness and sorrow, that room, 
softly sunlit, with its summer winds gently sway- 
ing the light curtains, — its vases of flowers, its 
birds beyond the window, its Blessington and 
Aunt Catharine within, — was something at least 
to always remember had once been hers. 

So soon as she was able to be removed, Bles- 
sington insisted that he must take her to bracing 
mountain air. She demurred, for what would 
“ they say ?” (that potent factor in so much of 
the world’s doings and abstainings) ; hut Anally 
consented to go to a quiet resort among the 
Catskills, a half hotel half boarding-house (un- 
inviting conglomeration), where she and her 
father had been together in times not long past. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


75 


And, indeed, Blessington himself, as well as 
Aunt Catharine and faithful Mammy, needed 
bracing air after their long vigils by the side of 
Alvia’s bed. Aunt Catharine’s gentle soul was 
yearning for her quiet home, and for the gouty 
husband she had left there, but she consented to 
go as chaperon with Alvia, to remain with her 
until she was established in the little hotel at the 
mountains ; and Alvia remembered a special 
friend sojourning there that season, “ One who 
will be willing,” said she, “ to matronize our 
little party when Aunt Catharine leaves us, and 
so I think I may go.” 

“ Yes,” smiled Blessington (he could smile so 
easily now), ‘‘ matronize our little party. Mammy 
included, I suppose.” 

So upon a sunny Southern day the dark-eyed 
stranger watched Alvia walk feebly across the 
piazza leaning upon the arm of the fine-looking 
l^ortherner, step into a carriage, and with Mrs. 
Eastman, Blessington, and Mammy, drive away; 
this time with no Claude Levin to intercept with 
courteous fraud. 


76 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

Rare Blessington ! he did not forget his grati- 
tude because his use for the dear old Aunt Cath- 
arine was at an end. After her first week in the 
mountains, when he saw that she was really 
anxious to leave them, grieving over the lonely 
and gouty estate of the one she knew was 
looking and wishing for her, Blessington sallied 
forth with her one morning for the purpose of 
‘‘ seeing her safely home,” over a distance of tw^o 
hundred miles. A little matter of escort that 
meant a two days’ journey for himself. Alvia 
could not keep the question from her mind, 
“ When would Claude Levin have done this ?” 
But to Alvia the contrast between Blessington 
and Claude w^as no new discovery, in spite of 
the fact that Claude’s ring was on her finger. 

When Blessington had returned from this 
jaunt, with serenity quite unruffled, and as 
strength was returning to Alvia, he came to 
her upon the porch one morning asking her to 
drive with him. She looked out at her well- 
loved mountains fiooded with morning sunlight, 
but something whispered to her that she was not 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


77 


right in allowing this grand, unselfish man to 
devote himself to her, realizing more and more 
as she did that she could only take the part of 
friend to him. She faltered something of the 
kind in answer to his invitation. 

He only stood looking down upon her with a 
pained expression in his face. Her own flushed, 
and she said, — 

“ I have been letting you tie yourself to me.” 

“ In your heart,” said he, ‘‘ do you believe me 
to be tied when I am with you ? If you want to 
make me an uncomfortable prisoner, send me 
away from yourself. What time shall we drive ?” 

I shall be ready at eleven,” she answered, 
“but I must talk with you then as I cannot 
upon this porch.” 

“Yes,” he said, “we will talk; we will take 
a long, slow, lonely drive. It will be ‘ We two, 
we two, while the world’s away.’ Ah,” he 
added, “ if I could only follow out the song 
‘upon our wedding day;’ hut that day must 
come, although I do not yet quite understand; 
hut I know you too truly,” he said, in a low 

7 * 


78 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


voice, and looking off toward the mountains, “ to 
believe that you do not love me, after — after our 
meeting in Buenaventura.” 

At that moment he was quite oblivious of the 
fact that others were at some little distance from 
them on the piazza. Perhaps, like the ostrich, 
because his hack was turned, his eyes hidden 
from the crowd, he felt himself unseen ; or per- 
haps just then his mind and heart and soul 
were so filled with Alvia he was conscious of 
nothing beyond. It was not that he did not 
care, or often forgot himself; but he did, with 
his back to the people, put his hand upon hers 
as he spoke, and Alvia smiled a little by way of 
chiding him, and hurried to her room. 

As she stood at the bureau dressing for the 
long itte-h-itie, with Blessington in the little 
phaeton, health and strength again asserting 
themselves within her, without, a glorious morn- 
ing in the mountains, is it strange that, with all 
her trouble, something closely akin to joy arose 
within her breast ? 

She sat down at the open window, slowly 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


79 


drawing on her gloves, while her eyes fell upon 
an oak near by, its glossy leaves glinting in the 
morning sun. Fairy spider could not have 
woven more deftly a covering for those happy, 
sunny leaves than did the thoughts of Alvia 
Melborn, — a filmy golden net-work of dreams. 
Some stray sunbeam of hope must for the mo- 
ment have fallen upon her heart. 

Just at eleven she went to the piazza, for she 
scorned to be one of those women who seek to 
enhance their value in the eyes of a man by 
keeping him awaiting her beyond the hour of 
appointment : and she knew well that Blessing- 
ton was too much of a gentleman not to be 
already in waiting upon her. 

His grey eyes were very happy and full of 
sunshine as he met her at the door and as he 
lent her a steady hand while she stepped into 
the phaeton. 

When they were out of sight of the little vil- 
lage and its busy people, and their trusty horse 
was slowly climbing one of the mountain-roads, 
Blessington let the lines hang loosely while the 


80 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


old grey took his own pleasant will in climb- 
ing and stopping and looking back at frequent 
intervals to catch a glimpse of so congenial a 
driver. A moss-grown ^vatering-trough stood 
well up the bill-side, and at other times Blessing- 
ton would have guided thither the poor dumb 
beast that was serving him. That morning 
he was not aware of the trough, and the grey 
relished his cooling draught the more for having 
walked up to it as master of himself, and for 
having had time at his own command, ad libitum, 
to linger in the shady spot lunching generously 
upon pin-oaks. 

It was only as the horse finally turned out 
from his road-side refreshment and cranked the 
wheels a little too sharply, that Blessington be- 
thought himself of his responsible position as 
driver. His thought was timely, however, and 
they were soon again journeying slowly up the 
steep and winding road, fianked on either side by 
a noble Catskill forest, with the sunlight flicker- 
ing through the trees upon them and upon the 
many-patterned mosses that lined the banks. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


81 


When Blessington had given the horse his 
quasi-freedom in climbing he had taken Alvia’s 
hand within his own, and it had struggled for 
liberty, though perhaps feebly, hut he with his. 
sensitive spirit had quickly withdrawn his caress. 

After the first surprise, the first joy of their 
meeting in Buenaventura, a meeting after such 
a separation as had been theirs, Alvia had said 
to Blessington, “We must only meet as friends, 
— at least — at least,” she hesitated, “ while mat- 
ters remain as they are;” and had added, bit- 
terly, “ it is hard to remember that I belong 
to another.” 

And he had answered, solemnly, “ By all that 
is holy, Alvia, you belong to me. If you were 
married to Levin — but no, thank God, you are 
not.” 

Alvia was a woman of true freedom of spirit; 
none the less for this did she love true righteous- 
ness of heart; this morning her heart almost 
chided her for taking her hand from Blessing- 
ton, from one so true and noble, and so soon it 
might be she must give him pain. Each avoided 
/ 


82 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


the trying topic they knew must come so 
soon. 

Very gently, very tenderly, Blessington talked 
to her, while the little rivulets murmured softly 
by; the wood-robin’s plaintive note sometimes 
came to them from the thickets, and the happy 
morning sunshine amid the crisp mountain air 
seemed a benediction. In after-days Alvia’s 
heart reverted to this lovely hour. 

Silently they would sit sometimes for many 
minutes while their horse pulled them slowly 
upward, upward amid the luxuriant tangle of 
green and the fresh odors of the forest; but 
theirs was not an empty silence. Richard Bles- 
sington’s presence was never a silence to Alvia 
and never a loneliness, whether he was speaking 
with his lips or not; and his every tone of voice, 
expression of eye, or some little kindly thought- 
fulness, were more to her than the utmost efforts 
of other men. 

When they came to the summit there stretched 
far before and below them, bathed in all the 
hopefulness of broad expansion and morning 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


83 


light, the valley of the Hudson. Far, far below, 
broad and wide it lay, like some celestial basin 
of the gods to catch the sunlight; garnished 
with wooded mountain-slopes, with sleepy hills 
and hollows levelled by the lofty point of view ; 
and white-gleaming farm-homes and toy-like 
spires and villages, with fields of verdure and 
fields of ripened harvest, ribboned by the silver 
Hudson winding through. Ah, if they could 
but dwell and dream there, at least for a time, 
with the long, winding forest road behind them 
between them and the world ! 

Both were silent for some minutes in full com- 
panionship. Blessington knew without words 
that the woman at his side was in sympathy with 
himself ; presently they looked into each other’s 
eyes, which was speech enough. A little chip- 
munk stirred in the leaves near by, — a pine cone 
fell, — the silent sunshine touched the leaves and 
twigs about them, and Blessington gathered 
Alvia’s hand into his own. 

“ Tell me,” said he, now, — while this pano- 
rama lies before us as of the Promised Land, — 


84 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


tell me that my heart, too, may look upon its 
promised land. You will let nothing — nothing 
come between us ?” 

When she answered, her voice was very low. 

Even were I able to keep my thought away 
from you, still my heart would be yours; and — 
and sometimes of late there has seemed to come 
to me some glimmer of hope, but I can think of 
nothing but postponement, and that — that seems 
to he worn almost threadbare now.” 

His lips were compressed with pain. ‘‘ I think 
you will not give your hand without your heart, 
— not Alvia Melborn, — surely you cannot enter- 
tain this thought.” It did not seem to he Rich- 
ard Blessington’s voice that spoke. It seemed 
like the voice of some one far away and in pain. 

“ Ho,” she answered, and out of her own voice 
all the life seemed gone, “ you are right ; I cannot 
entertain the thought.” 

He saw her chin quiver, he felt her hand clasp 
his within his own, he saw her face turn away 
toward that wide-spread, sunny landscape, — he 
heard the words repeated, ‘‘ Ho, I cannot enter- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


85 


tain the thought ; but if I must do it, may God 
be merciful to me and let me die.’’ 

He put his arm very gently about her. “ I 
understand you,” he said, the uprightness of 
your soul ; but let me speak, not in mercy to you 
or to myself, but only for the sake of what is 
true, of what is right. You have promised your 
hand to Levin ; you thought — ^you thought my 
love for you had long since died ; you thought for 
your father’s sake you could give Levin at least 
a faithful kindliness. Am I repeating you aright, 
Alvia? But now circumstances are altered.” 

“ Yes,” she interrupted, “ but only altered in 
part; with him the facts remain the same, and 
with my father.” 

A light broke over Blessington’s face, and he 
said, quickly, I am not sure that I understood 
the full details that night in Buenaventura. 
Would — would — just financial assistance relieve 
your father and — and us — from this terrible em- 
barrassment ?” 

She looked at him for a moment in a dazed 
way, and he hastened on. 

8 


86 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“ Because I am not helpless in that way as I 
would have been fifteen years ago. I can bless 
at last those dollars that I have held so lightly 
if ” but she interrupted him again. 

Drawing herself as far away as she could in 
the little phaeton, she said, in a suppressed voice, 
“Hush! do not say it; do not let me have to 
remember that you asked me to come to you 
for money !” 

His eyes, a moment before so innocently glad, 
were pained and sorrowful now. 

“Women are strange beings,” he said, turn- 
ing the horse’s head homeward without one 
parting glance at that broad panorama before 
them sleeping in the sunlight. 

His nature was too refined to add, “ You would 
go to Levin for money,” as many men would 
have said. And he knew it was not for money’s 
sake Alvia went to Levin, but for her father’s. 

“ Will you let me tell you just this ?” he said : 
“ I have never asked you to be mine for money ; 
I would not have you for money,” he continued, 
with a proud smile; “ and if I did not know that 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


87 


you know that, I would be bitterly unhappy ; but 
I am unable to see why I may not help your 
father in his difficulty as well as Claude Levin. 
Oh, Alvia, Alvia, at least do not be foolish, my 
little one, my love ! Look into my eyes and tell 
me if I do not know that you would come to me 
forever for the love that you carry for me in 
your soul? Alvia, I will come to your — ^your 
wedding and forbid the service, if there is 
nothing else to be done ; and it will not be be- 
cause I am willing to take you to myself at any 
cost, even the sacrifice of yourself.^^ 

There was fire in Blessington’s deep, steady 
eyes as he thought of the dastardly Levin. 

“ Now,’^ he said, “ to resume.” 

“Ko,” she answered, with fiushing face, 
‘‘ there is no need to resume ; my father is in no 
difficulty now; financially, everything was set- 
tled long ago; no care remains to him except to 
know that his daughter does not dishonor her 
part of the contract, and in so doing dishonor 
him. The worst of it all is, the price of my hand 
has already been paid ! 


gg A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL 

“ When my father told me if I could ever 
marry Claude it would save him from ruin if I 
would say it then; when I saw the misery upon 
his countenance and his steps growing feebler 
every day ; when Claude came to me that night, 
saying, ‘ Alvia,’ — ^you remember he is my second 
cousin, — ‘Alvia, this is the last time; I will 
never trouble you again,’ — I need not go further, 
you know the rest. IN'ovv, what course is left to 
me but one? Claude has kept his part of the con- 
tract, what else can I do with mine ? And how 
can I do it?” she continued, with the dulness 
of despair in her voice. “ If I had died when I 
had the fever! for death is the only way out. 
After all your self-sacrificing care of me, can it 
be for this : to give to another the life that you 
did so much to save for me ?” 

Blessington only answered, gently, “Do not 
put it in that way.” Then, after a short pause, 
“ How will you stand at the altar and promise to 
love?” 

“ I do not know,” she answered, and her voice 
was dull and lifeless. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 39 

She seemed to be turning into stone; but 
even now there was still about her that deli- 
cate indefinable something which never failed 
to tell Blessington that she was the happier 
that he was near. There was never between 
these two a degeneration of that deep though 
unobtrusive consciousness of the other’s pres- 
ence, that living of each in the other, that per- 
fect sympathy, which makes life heaven. It 
seemed that it might never degenerate for them, 
hut would blossom perennially above the frost- 
line. And what is more insidious, more sure to 
blight the life of love, than that which spreads 
itself broadcast, — the frost of a growing care- 
lessness and indifiference ? 

After luncheon Alvia complied almost me- 
chanically with Blessington’s request that she 
should go to her room, lie down and rest for a 
time. But as she lay there covered by a shawl 
from Mammy’s hands, the same cold, dull feel- 
ing was upon her, like a stone upon her heart. 

A small package of letters from Claude had 
accumulated, which Alvia had not been able to 
8 - 


90 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


bring herself yet to open. She thought of them 
now in a dull, listless way. She wondered why 
she had cared whether she opened them or not. 
Then she remembered her first acquaintance- 
ship with Claude, for she had not met him in 
her earlier days. She remembered the first 
cousinly kiss he had essayed to claim and her 
instinctive recoil, — her later repentance in feel- 
ing she had felt hardly toward him and without 
cause. Ah, without cause ; could she say it now ? 
First impressions were, after all, something not to 
be disregarded. Even though she might not put 
her finger upon crime of his, still his spirit daily 
taught her to disrespect him more and more. 

After an hour she arose and looked with a 
vacant gaze from her window. It seemed to 
her as though some one were asking her why 
she had been so restful, so almost happy, for a 
time after that night at the concert. The ques- 
tion seemed to taunt her and to repeat itself over 
and over, until at last she answered aloud, — 

“ Why had Claude Levin been so indifierent 
to me, then, for many weeks and months ? and 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 9I 

why could he not have remained so still ? 
Why should I not have hope and happiness, 
then ?” 

There were ears in the adjoining room beyond 
the open door to which Alvia’s remark to her- 
self, or to nobody, had come as a revelation, or 
I believe it would be more correct to say, as a 
confirmation. They were very black ears, and 
above them lay the folds of a yellow bandanna, 
but they were kindly ears. 

Presently Alvia took her straw sun-hat and 
started forth, saying, as she left the door, 
“ Mammy, I am going for a walk.” 

And Mammy answered, “Yes, honey, jis yo 
walk a leetle; doan walk too fah, yo isn’t strong 
yit.” 

When Alvia reached the piazza Blessington 
was nowhere in sight, and she strolled along to 
a spot toward which she had often looked from 
her window, it seemed such a haven of rest. 

Who has not looked thus to some far-off point 
with the feeling that mellowing distance gives, 
so well described by Jean Ingelow ? — 


92 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“Man dwells apart, thougli not alone, 

He walks among his peers unread; 

The best of thoughts which he hath known 
For lack of listeners are not said. 

“ Yet dreaming on earth’s clustered isles. 

He saith, ‘ They dwell not lone like men 
Forgetful that their sunflecked smiles 
Flashed far beyond each other’s ken. 

“ He looks on God’s eternal suns 
That sprinkle the celestial blue. 

And saith, ‘ Ah ! happy shining ones, 

I would that men were grouped like you.’ 

“Yet this is sure : the loveliest star 
That clustered with its peers we see. 

Only because from us so far 

Doth near its fellows seem to be.” 

So, the distance seems ever a spot enchanted 
with happiness, and Alvia passed over the fields 
to her enchanted ground. 

It was a clearing extending part way up the 
side of the mountain, opposite their little hotel. 
Hear this open space, or rather occupying the 
lower edge of it, was another large boarding- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 93 

house in its neat, white paint, green shutters, 
cupola, and gables, and surrounded by shelter- 
ing trees. Back of this the clearing was partly 
environed by the mountain forest, which stood 
around one side of the large field in the form 
of a crescent, making a well-sheltered and 
secluded nook. 

To this point Alvia directed her steps. 
Beaching it, she passed around the corner of 
woodland and seated herself upon a bank of last 
year’s leaves that the wind had piled against a 
fallen tree. With her arms upon her knees she 
rested her head in her hands in the attitude of 
despair. 

It was July, and growing late in the afternoon. 
The slanting rays of the sun streamed over her 
and touched the forest about her with a tender, 
pinkish glow, half melting into purple, — that 
quality of light which comes only late in a sum- 
mer day among the mountains ; as though the 
sun were trying to throw something of its soul 
upon them before leaving them to the sombre 
night. 


94 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

“ A tender glow, exceeding fair, 

A dream of day without its glare.”* 

Ah, if she could stay there with no one to find 
her, — stay there until she could die ; it seemed 
the only boon left her to ask of Heaven. 

But there was one pair of eyes that had 
watched Alvia’s footsteps across the fields and 
around the wooded corner, — black small eyes, 
but they were loving. 

Mammy was unusually restless herself that af- 
ternoon. She fidgeted around the rooms, much 
to the disgust of boarders on the fioor below, 
and succeeded finally in breaking something. 
To break was a rare occurrence with Mammy. 

“ Dar,” she exclaimed, to comfort herself, 
hits dat bottle of Turnery what Mars Claude 
guv to Miss Alvy las’ Christmas and she done 
guv to me. I’s in luck sho’s I’s bawn, fur Mars 
Claude’s glass break on my bans dis day !” 

The words were scarcely out of her mouth 
when there came a hasty rap at Alvia’s door. 


* Whittier. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


95 


Mammy answered the knock, and Blessington 
stood there with a telegram in his hand, which, 
in his haste and worriment, he had brought him- 
self to the door. 

‘‘ Will you tell Miss Alvia,” he said, quickly, 
‘‘ that I am summoned upon a most urgent 
matter, must take the train in an hour, and will 
await her now upon the piazza ?” 

Miss Alvy done gone off dar cross de fields,” 
said Mammy, indicating with her finger some- 
what vaguely around the horizon. 

“ Where, — which way ?” said Blessington, hur- 
riedly. 

“ I trots ahead and shows yo,” said Mammy, 
rising to the occasion. “ I done seed her go.” 
And she was already starting before him down 
the hall. 

Blessington followed her over ditches, fences, 
and brier-bushes, till at last Mammy, quite out 
of breath, pointed a triumphant finger to a list- 
less, dejected figure, upon which they came sud- 
denly, behind the corner of woodland. 

Mammy turned homeward after Blessington’s 


96 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


warm thanks, but went only a few paces before 
she realized her fatigue, and sat herself down 
with a little grunt directly behind a large tree 
near Alvia and Blessington. 

And such parts of their conversation as were 
not spoken too low fell upon Mammy’s most 
innocently unscrupulous ears. It was not from 
idle curiosity that she listened to-day. It was for 
a purpose. 

Blessington seated himself on the dry leaves 
at Alvia’s side. In a few words he explained to 
her that an imperative call must separate them 
in a brief half-hour. His valise, already packed, 
would meet him at the station, but at the 
most he had hut a few precious moments to re- 
main. 

‘‘ Before I go,” he said, ‘‘ will you tell me 
that you will not marry Levin ?” 

It seemed to Alvia that in the last hour his 
face had grown haggard. She could hear her 
own pain, but could she bear the pain that was 
in that face that she loved, — that strong, that 
tender face ? 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


97 


She dropped her own in her hands, moaning 
aloud, ‘‘ Oh, God, he merciful !” 

“It is not God,” said Blessington, gravely; 
“ we need not beg of God , — He is ever doing 
the best without our asking; and I know",” he 
added, “ that you are trying to do the best, to the 
sacrifice even of yourself and of me; but, oh! be 
very careful before taking such step, — before you 
blight your life — and mine.” 

Her heart ached at his last word, spoken very 
gently. It ached the more because of the gentle- 
ness that came wdth his every utterance to her. 

“ Alvia,” he continued, “ if Levin even seemed 
to love you truly, perhaps then I could have less 
to say, but what right has he to such a woman as 
you, — ^you, who have a heart to recognize the 
truth that there is nothing in life to be held in 
value as love, love in all its grandeur and purity, 
the love that can sacrifice itself? For is it not the 
greatest object and end of living? Nothing is 
like unto it; it is ‘ the pearl of great price.’ And 
no one can appreciate more keenly than I do, 
Alvia, that there is no true love that is not 
9 


B g 


98 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


allied to honor. Our best defining of God is 
the one word Love. But must our ideas of 
honor he always so widely divided ? And must 
a man like Claude Levin bind you to himself 
and call you wife ?” 

Oh, the pain in his face, the pain in his voice ! 

“ I revere your stand for duty,” he continued, 
“ hut — you are mistaken ! Believe me, you are 
mistaken ; think once more before I go.” 

After a silence of minutes between them, in 
which nothing but his grand, sad face seemed to 
come before her, she put her hand voluntarily in 
his, and her answer came. 

“ Remember this always, for my sake,” she 
said, slowly, and her voice trembled. “ It is not 
because I will not come to you, but because I 
cannot.” Her voice was very low as she added, 

I can only see it in one way. May God help 
us both !” 

She looked up into his face, for he had arisen, 
as she too arose, with the intensity of her feeling 
pleading in her eyes. ‘‘ You will always know 
that I love — you,” she said. How could she see 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 99 

him leave her with the pain in his face and say 
less ? 

He took her in his arms, close to his great, 
loving heart, and was gone. 

Alvia’s eyes were dry. She stepped beyond 
the corner of the wood and stood there, watch- 
ing the grand, manly figure that was striding 
down the hill-slope, with every step widening 
the space between them, increasing the separa- 
tion. Oh, the tension on the heart-strings in 
partings like unto this ! 

When Blessington reached the stile at the foot 
of the field he turned and took one backward 
look. 

Alvia was still standing by the edge of the 
wood; behind her the mountains in their glow 
of tender light. One of her arms was lifted, for 
she was shading her eyes as she watched ; the 
low golden rays of sunlight streaming upon her 
gave a Rembrandt efifect to her figure and an 
auburn tinge to her hair; her broad-brimmed 
sun-hat had fallen back and formed a glory 
about her head. 


100 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Blessington paused and lifted his hat for a 
moment, as one might raise it before a picture 
of the Madonna. 

An hour later Alvia walked with slow and 
melancholy tread down the same path that Bles- 
sington had trod, carrying a heart as heavy as 
his own. 

When she was well down the hill. Mammy, 
the corner of whose apron had done much ser- 
vice behind the great tree in the woods, followed 
after her. 

That night I think good angels must have 
tried to whisper in Alvia’s dreams, but, alas ! she 
heard them not. Only a moonbeam nestled 
among the silky meshes of her hair and slept 
there. 

But Mammy had unusual dreams that night. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


101 


CHAPTER lY. 

Alvia was in one sense, the better sense only, 
a woman of the world. After Blessington had 
gone she would have preferred to linger within 
the protecting walls of her own chamber with 
the weight that was on her heart ; but wisdom 
whispered, “ This must not he,” for already eyes 
and ears were curious upon the subject of aftairs 
which pertained only to herself. She knew that 
some days must be lived through in the stifling 
atmosphere of boarding-house gossip before she 
should take leave of the little place with its idle 
people but busy tongues. So she sat upon the 
piazza with her friend and chaperon through 
other sunlit mornings with the memory of that 
one morning in her heart, when she had been 
slowly driven up the wooded mountain, where 
the robins had sung, squirrels darted along th^ 
9 * 


102 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


road-banks, and Blessington had sat by her 
side. 

Bravely she went through the evenings that 
seemed such a blank to her now, and with a 
stone at her heart she sang her sweetest, ten- 
derest songs to the order of most incongenial 
listeners. More bravely still she endured the 
chit-chat of the place, the impertinent question- 
ings of callow heads and hearts, who inquired 
raspingly into the details of Mr. Blessington’s 
sudden departure, and whose remarks of sym- 
pathy (?) upon the same were pointed by expres- 
sive pauses and glances mutually exchanged 
among themselves. 

Their unrefined natures grated upon her deli- 
cate soul, for Alvia had no peers in the little 
world surrounding her, and rarely indeed, for 
that matter, in any circle. But she possessed 
that adaptability which belongs to a broad indi- 
viduality, and was one of those women who are 
not only able to lean downward when occasion 
requires, but can do their leaning gracefully : so 
gracefully that while never losing their own 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


103 


poise, neither is the awkwardness of condescen- 
sion ever visible. 

Yet there was one species of the genus homo 
whose level it was difficult for Alvia to reach, 
and in whose presence she ever felt herself to be 
but failure, — that species of masculine kind which 
is largely innocent of ideas, but which distin- 
guishes itself in gloves and sticks, and lisping 
conversation. Surely a silly woman is a misery 
to those who are not like unto her, hut a silly 
man who can endure ? 

Of this Alvia had the trial upon her home- 
ward trip, an individual of the pattern already 
mentioned chancing to go down the river on 
the same day that she turned her back upon 
those mountains holding among their lights and 
shadows such tender recollections. 

One Percy Leston had spent hut a limited 
number of moments while at the hotel in the 
direct presence of Miss Melborn. 

“ Deuced stupid woman,” his thought had 
said, “ but then of course she isn’t young.” 

Blessington would have answered him, “ I^’o, 


104 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Mr. Leston, she has never been young enough 
for you.” 

Leston stood in one end of the Pullman 
coach taking a survey of the occupants. There 
was no one with whom he could claim acquaint- 
ance except Miss Melborn. On the seat behind 
her sat Mammy, always bolt upright in travel- 
ling, no doubt by way of preparation for colli- 
sions and broken rails, and around whom were 
spread innumerable parcels. 

‘‘Somewhat passe, and regular bore to talk 
to,” thought Leston, “hut then, makes a fellah 
more prominent to have some acquaintance on 
hoard.” 

He finally found his way condescendingly to 
Alvia’s side, and offered her a patronizing hand. 

“ Ah, Miss Melborn ! pleasant morning,” said 
he, half wheeling round on the chair in front of 
her. 

Alvia sighed inwardly, outwardly she only 
said, pleasantly, — 

“ You too are going down this morning ?” 

“Yaas; hated to leave the mountains this 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


105 


time; deuced lot of jolly girls, you know, and 
really swell. Small house, but tony, you know.’’ 

Slight pause. 

“ Miss Clara Keen’s an awfully bright girl, 
isn’t she ? and Miss Belle Blake’s a perfect stun- 
ner, don’t you know ? By Jove, I’d like to be 
worth about a million. Do you know, Miss Mel- 
born, fact, I wouldn’t try marriage on less than 
that ? — not in these days, you know. Little 
enough. Want my wife to look swell. Want 
all the men and women to turn around and 
look at her when we take a front seat in the 
theatre, don’t you know ? By Jove !” 

“ What is your profession, Mr. Leston ?” 

“ Ah, — I don’t know; looked up medicine for a 
while; was right interested, don’t you know? but 
medicine’s a little too light for me, and I don’t 
care about being eternally around sick people, 
you know. Then I turned my attention to law, 
but law is prosy, dull, you know. I like some- 
thing you can fire up over. Lots of energy 
about me. Shouldn’t be surprised if I’d try 
literature, you know. Deuced pleasant occu- 


106 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL, 


pation, and then a fellah can travel, don’t you 
know?” 

Mr. Leston sustained the conversation in simi- 
lar style for some length of time, until Alvia 
said, — 

“ I beg you will not let me interfere, Mr. Les- 
ton, when you have the chance to take notes 
along the river.” She turned her eyes wistfully 
toward the blue Hudson as she spoke. 

“ Ha ! ha ! notes along the Hudson ! This is 
stale, flat, you know ; I’ve been up here a dozen 
times.” 

“ But each time some new thought must come 
in the presence of such loveliness, — from the 
lights on the river if nothing more.” 

“ By Jove, the woman’s a fool, deuced stupid,” 
thought Leston, as he arose and excused him- 
self for the smoking-car. 

And Alvia thought, “ When Mr. Leston paints 
with his pen, whether or not it be in genre, it 
seems probable he will not work in landscape.” 

‘‘ Honey, yo’s tired an’ pale, — take dis sheah 
outen dis leetle glass,” urged Mammy. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


107 


It was not until Alvia had reached her home 
that she found it possible to open and read 
Levin’s letters. It was only necessity that 
helped her then. Ah, well ! they were soon 
run over; brief, careless letters, with hardly the 
shadow of soul upon them, yet he was urging 
quite imperatively their wedding-day. 

“ Why is he so determined to marry me,” she 
asked herself, ‘‘ when he is in many ways so in- 
different to me?” But Alvia would not shirk 
in anywise the path she felt that duty opened 
before her. “ If I am going to do it I must do 
it bravely,” she thought, and not spoil the act 
in the manner of it;” and when she met her 
cousin she met him as she had parted with him. 
This is not saying much for warmth, it is true. 

Claude had stooped to bestow a perfunctory 
kiss, that quality of kiss a man may give his 
mother-in-law. ‘‘You look a little scrawny,” 
he said. This was his nearest allusion to her 
illness. 

Latterly, Levin’s home had been near the 
Meiboms’. Claude sauntered in upon Alvia 


108 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


in careless fashion at any odd hour that suited 
him. As she sat with him in some of the sum- 
mer evenings, tolerating both him and his cigar, 
she realized bitterly how little there was in com- 
mon between them ; that with him for a life-long 
companion she must feed forever upon husks. 
Already her days seemed filled with nothing 
better, and her soul went starving. 

The clergy may preach to the end of time 
upon the fulness of an unselfish life, and it will 
remain true to the end of time that nothing is 
more beautiful than unselfishness ; hut that self- 
immolation can bring completeness to a life is 
simply disproven by experience, experience so 
universal it is argument enough that this is not 
the will of the Creator toward his creatures. 
Can a life be perfect and well-rounded without 
the deepest requirements of its nature being 
met? An entire fulfilment of one’s selfhood, 
wedded to unselfishness, alone renders fulness 
to an existence ; and Alvia, in spite of the self- 
abnegation she was practising, neither experi- 
enced that surpassing bliss nor that celestial 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


109 


peace supposed to accompany a self-ignored 
life. 

She dragged through day after day, sadly, 
wearily. All the flavor was gone from living, 
and at night when her head was on her pillow 
and the quiet stars looked in. Memory would 
come and sit beside her whether she would or 
not ; then one grand and lovely face would come 
before her ; would seem ever sorrowfully to bend 
above her, and her pillow would be wet with 
tears. Again she would be slowly driving up 
the mountain with Richard by her side, again 
she would feel the touch of his hand and see 
the dear light of his eyes; so quiet and restful, 
so deep and strong. 

And Blessington, because he was absent, had 
he forgotten the woman of his love, — he, 
Richard Blessington? 

A few days after Alvia’s return the postman 
brought a letter in a hand that sent the warm 
blood to her cheeks. Sitting by her window, she 
hastily broke the seal. The maple, now in a 
summer dress, which was beginning to grow a 
10 


110 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

little dingy, rustled and whispered softly outside 
the window as Alvia read. Dear, dear w^ords ! 
As she raised her eyes they fell on the maple. 
She would rather it were the maple just then 
than anything else. One line, “ And perhaps 
the day may come when, standing lonely and 
storm-beaten, you can receive the protection of a 
friend,” she seemed to read all over the rustling, 
whispering tree, as she raised her eyes. 

How she had loved the maple ever since that 
night it had talked to her of him, and she had 
gone from it into the world to meet him ! as 
though it had raised for her some potent wand 
of fortune. It seemed a friend that gave her 
sympathy ; not some discordant pity, but some- 
thing just in touch with her heart. 

A few minutes later when Mammy knocked 
and entered she saw a tear creeping slowly down 
toward an open letter in Miss Alvia’s hand; 
one little stray tear that Alvia’s hasty touch had 
missed. 

“ Oh, honey, yo’s got trouble, I knows yo is,” 
said she. “ Miss Alvy, yo remembers dat ar wus 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Ill 


in de Lohd’s book what yo done read to 
Mammy many a time; dat ar comfo’tin’ wus 
’bout de angels a-holdin’ ob yo up in dere band. 
I reckons hit means way up high whar trouble 
can’t git no hold ob yo, howsumeber hit a-growlin’ 
and prowlin’ roun’. Miss Alvy, hit seem like 
de Lohd done guv me a dream dat de angels is 
watchin’ roun’ yosef, an’ nebah yo mine de lions 
if dey roah.” 

Whether Mammy clearly recognized the fact 
that she herself was the watching angel remains 
somewhat indistinct, but it seems quite apparent 
that her mind had strayed a little from her 
original quotation ; probably to Daniel’s den of 
lions. 

Her sharp black eye watched for Levin that 
evening, as though he were a lover of her own, 
but Alvia sat listless and sad upon the piazza, 
realizing the truth of a thought spoken hundreds 
of years ago, — “ Man does not live by bread 
alone.” 

Oh, no, no, no, not by bread alone, bread for 
the body ; spiritual meat and drink he must have 


112 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


as well ; and how many a wasting body, even, 
has been restored by the cordial of love or the 
strength of hope. But no hope came to Alvia, 
though the man that was to be her husband sat 
and smoked by her side. 

“ Fs gwine ter watch till I gits him !” ejacu- 
lated Mammy, who, once more disappointed, saw 
him leave the gate. But the very next day 
brought what she had expected and patiently 
looked for since her return ; the presence alone 
of Mars Claude in the little arbor near the 
kitchen porch. For that dream that had visited 
Mammy on her last night in the mountains had 
made such friends with her heart and brain that 
they three had slept together and waked to- 
gether and travelled together down the noisy, 
rattling railway, had chuckled often to each 
other over some exploit in view, and would 
not rest content until the little pursuit they 
had in common was accomplished. And now 
the arbor near the kitchen porch looked more 
satisfactory to Mammy than it had since her 
return, for was not Mars Claude at last inside 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


113 


of it ? She established herself at once behind 
the lattice in the porch and lost no time in 
opening a conversation with Susan, who was 
cooking in the kitchen : a conversation neces- 
sarily conducted in anything but an undertone. 
How cheery the grass in the morning sun, and 
the convolvulus that covered the arbor! The 
day looked pleasant to Mammy. 

“Dat a pity ’bout Mars Claude Levin,” 
screamed Mammy. 

“ What done happen Mars Claude ?” answered 
Susan. 

“ Oh, nuffin done happen, only what’s a gwine 
ter happen,” said Mammy. 

Some indistinct query from the kitchen, to 
which Mammy replied, “ Oh, nuffin ’tall, ony 
pity him gwine take Miss Alvy wid all de sar- 
cumstances.” 

“ What sarcumstantials ? She ain’t no widder 
wid chilluns.” 

“ Sho ’nuff,” answered Mammy ; “ but Mars 
Claude wouldn’t mine no chilluns like dese yah 
Barcumstances.” 
h 


10 * 


114 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“Whatever is yo talkin’ ’bout? is yo gone 
stahk crazy, when yo’s alius bin a-sayin’ no 
man on de Lawd’s yarth fit to go ’longside er 
Miss Alvy?” 

“ Miss Alvy lubly as an angel, but she got 
sumfin’ de marter wid her jis de same, an’ hit 
ain’t for her ole Mammy to say hit’s sumfin t 
what’ll keep her po’ly for all’ays ; I leaves dat 
ar fur de doctah down in Geawgia.” 

Mammy’s blood fairly curdled at her own au- 
dacity, but she felt that the end justified the 
means, though the means cost her a struggle. 

“ Howsumever,” she muttered to herself, “ I’s 
tell ’em all jis what de marter wid her, fo’ many 
weeks. An’ ef dey doan tink bein’ in lub wid 
Mars Bressington was marter ’nuff, hit’ll jis be 
too late fur Mars Claude anyway, leastways dat’s 
what ole Mammy hopin’.” 

A little more conversation ensued before 
Levin, with Mammy’s eye upon him, sheltered 
by the lattice, walked to the side piazza, and 
Mammy knew he had gone to join Miss Alvia. 

“ He tinks dat fevah done lef her po’ly some 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


115 


way er nudder sho nuff,” giggled Mammy to 
herself. ‘‘ I seed hit in his look.” 

That night Mammy scanned Alvia’s face 
closely to see if she might read there any sign 
of release, but there was none. 

While Levin and Alvia were sitting together 
that evening, a woman who doted upon Levin’s 
black eyes and Mephistophelian bearing came 
upon Alvia’s piazza ostensibly to make her a 
call ; but the visit was really upon Levin. How 
many hundreds of times have women enacted 
this little play before ! 

A few perfunctory words to Miss Melborn, 
and then the conversation ran entirely and very 
glibly between herself and Levin, punctuated 
lavishly with glances and manner intended to 
convey I adore you.” 

During this little episode Alvia had the 
time to think what this would be were Bles- 
sington in the place of Levin. ‘‘But then,” 
she told herself, “ Richard Blessington is one 
of those rare men with whom this would not 
be.” 


116 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

To-night it was no pain to her that she should 
be ignored; it was no pain to her that Levin 
should relish so well the glances and the con- 
verse of this woman, so bold, so forward, so 
flippant. Presently the woman arose to go, 
bristling with headed velvet and jewels; and 
Levin, with a slight good-night to Alvia, gave 
the visitor a very gracious arm. 

“ Oh,” thought Alvia, “ if only she can cap- 
tivate him completely, captivate him in time to 
set me free !” 

Before sleeping that night she wondered upon 
some strange questions concerning her fever 
that Claude had asked her on the piazza. 

Levin had seen much of late of this fair 
neighbor to whom he lent so willing an arm 
from Alvia’s porch, and the fair neighbor had 
never missed a calculation as to where and when 
she could meet him. She knew him to he en- 
gaged to Alvia Melborn, but she was not in pos- 
session of the fact that Alvia loved him not, 
and what cared she ? It would but give an 
added zest to her conquest did she but feel 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


117 


she had taken him from another woman. And 
she lingered ever in his presence when oppor- 
tunity was kind. 

Is it not after this manner that the hearts of 
many women run ? Still, let a Te Deum Lauda- 
mus arise, so long as there is womanhood re- 
maining that remembers its birthright, awaiting 
to be sought. 

Days and weeks glided by and the season was 
autumn: a year since Alvia had stood at her 
sunset window holding before her that por- 
traiture of memory. 

How much of bliss and pain had been com- 
pressed within one little year! 

At five o’clock on this afternoon a wedding 
was to be celebrated in a grand cathedral-like 
church near Alvia’s home. Ah, Alvia’s wed- 
ding-day had come, had come at last. A quiet 
marriage it was to be, with scarce an invited 
guest, and the bridal pair were to go from the 
church door upon their wedding-tour. Alvia’s 
father and brother with a few nearest friends 
were seated near the altar, and Mammy, among 


113 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

other household servants, sat, with glistening 
eyes, far down the aisle. 

Although the wedding was so small and in- 
formal, there were to* be no leave-takings in the 
church, all having taken place within the pri- 
vacy of the Melborn home. Neither was any 
high sacrament to be celebrated, for Alvia’s was 
not the sentimental faith of the ritualist; nor 
was it the blue and narrow coloring of spirit 
which still throws something of its shadow from 
darker days to ours, but that broad spiritual 
insight which is simply trust in goodness and 
trust in God. 

Punctually the bridal pair entered the church, 
and together they came in all quiet simplicity up 
the aisle while the organ rendered a singularly 
sweet Scottish march, a favorite of the groom. 
Alvia wore a travelling-suit of navy blue, and 
with the emotion that was visible in the color of 
her cheek, it seemed that she had never been 
more lovely to look upon. 

So Blessington thought as he looked fondly 
down upon his bride. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


119 


The clergyman went through the ceremony of 
asking them whether they were willing to take 
each other for husband and wife, much after the 
manner that a notary takes an acknowledgment, 
as though a little ashamed of so superfluous a 
question ; hut had the graces of the angel Ga- 
briel stood before them, it would have been to 
them the same. Half unconsciously they felt 
the mellow glow of light, they felt the poetry of 
the setting sun across the aisle, they felt the 
spirit of the low, sweet music whisper to their 
own in perfect harmony, — they felt the loveliness 
of whatever was lovely about them because of 
the happy consummation of the love within their 
hearts. 

The minister gave the hands he had joined a 
kindly greeting, and rapturously the triumphant 
strains of Mendelssohn led them down the happy 
aisle. 

It seemed always to Alvia that the church, 
with its lofty arches and quiet solemnity, had 
married them ; and the gentle setting sunlight 
and the tender music. 


120 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

But had it been Claude Levin by her side ? 
The words of the wedding service would have 
cut as an arrow into her soul, there would have 
been a blight upon the sunlight, and Mendels- 
sohn’s joyous strains would have fallen upon her 
ear as a dirge. Then she would have come forth 
into the open world a prisoner; to-day her feet 
trod the light steps of freedom because she was 
bound unto one . 

Late that evening, as they sat in their window 
together under the autumn moon, Blessington 
said, Do you think it was Mammy who gave 
you to me, or was it — that neighbor?” 

And Alvia answered, “ Both.” 

“ Then, little one,” rejoined Blessington (Alvia 
was not little, but rather tall), — “ then, little one. 
Levin persisted in demanding your hand from 
reasons which you, I think, as well as I, under- 
stand ; and his motives were not without a min- 
gling of spiteful ness because you had refused 
him this hand once and twice in years gone by.” 

“ Yes,” his wife answered, “ I shudder as one 
just escaped from the brink of a dreadful abyss.” 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


121 


For a moment they were silent; the moon 
looked in, though not intrudingly ; perhaps they 
looked in its face, — perhaps Blessington’s hand 
found Alvia’s again as it had once or twice be- 
fore in their history; while through the inmost 
recesses of both their hearts I think was ringing 
some echo of the grand old anthem, ‘‘Praise 
God, from whom all blessings flow.” 


122 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


CHAPTEE y. 

In the daily sunshine of Blessington’s spirit 
Alvia’s native buoyancy returned, and to her 
heart throughout the happy days came ever and 
anon a little song that Eichard had been fond 
of in their long ago. 

“Liftl 0 lift, thou lowering sky; 

An thou wilt, thy gloom forego 1 
An thou wilt not, he and I 
Need not part for drifts of snow. 

“Liftl 0 lift, thou lowering sky; 

An thou canst thy blue regain I 
An thou canst not, he and I 
Need not part for drops of rain.” * 

Blessington had taken Alvia back to that spot 
amidst the Catskills where she had said her 


Jean Ingelow. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 123 

heroic farewell to him only three months before, 
for it was late in October now. Sometimes in 
the afternoons when the sun was declining they 
sought the sheltered nook behind the wood, and 
sitting against the self-same tree where they had 
spent such a bitter hour, Blessington sometimes 
liked to whisper, “ No parting now.” It seemed 
to Alvia as if her husband’s arm, when it found 
its way about her, was a little more firm around 
her there than elsewhere, as though something 
were about to take her from him ; but there was 
no eye to criticise him : only the chipmunks and 
a few late birds looked on, with hearty approval. 

The days glided by with the swiftness that 
only such days can know, for once again 
the sun was smiling, once again the air was 
soft and balmy. Ah, it was Indian Summer! 
Indian Summer without and Indian Summer 
within : for as calm and blissful as the sunlight 
on the mountains was the sunshine that fell 
upon their hearts ; ‘‘ Late, late, so late,” but not 
“ too late” for all the bliss of youthful loving, 
not too late for all the depth, and all the tender- 


124 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


ness, and all the faith that woman’s heart can 
hold for man, or man’s can hold for woman. 

Would the daily contact of marriage, inter- 
woven as it ever must be with the petty cares 
and trials of every-day living, ever lessen the 
sentiment between them? Would that blight, 
so common, creep slowly and surely upon it, 
the blight of indifference? Would it little by 
little eat away the core while the surface still 
seemed fair? Would the voices, gentle, tender 
to each other now, grow hard and harder as the 
years rolled on? Would the eyes now ever 
mindful of the other’s presence grow blinded 
by the mists of time? Would carelessness take 
the place that once had been occupied by the 
grace of a tender thoughtfulness ? Then Mar- 
riage would lose her crown of glory, and all her 
robes be only draggled in the common dust. 

It has been said, — 

“. . . No lot below, 

For one whole day eludeth care; 

To ^marriage all the stories flow, 

And finish there : 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


125 


“As if with marriage came the end, 

The entrance into settled rest, 

The calm to which love’s tossings tend, 

The quiet breast. 

“For me love played the low preludes, 

Yet life began but with the ring. 

Such infinite solicitudes 
Around it cling.” * 

Ah, “ infinite solicitudes !” 

And will a newer face some day insert itself 
between this husband and this wife ? Will the 
love between them come some time to be to 
them a little shabby, a little threadbare ? Will 
the story grow too old to them to hold its inter- 
est? Will the craving for new worlds to con- 
quer ever reach such hearts as theirs? Will 
there some time be 

“ The rustle of a silken fold, 

A scent of Eastern sandalwood, 

A gleam of gold 1 
A lady I In the narrow space 


* Jean Ingelow. 
11 * 


126 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Between the husband and the wife, 
But nearest him, . . . a face 
With dangers rife?”* 


If their passion is based upon ephemeral 
fancy this will doubtless some day be, but will 
not the space between these two be ever too nar- 
row for the entrance of even the most oily ser- 
pent, if that love which finds its happiness in 
the happiness of the other be theirs ? — if a thor- 
ough, complete admiration of the character 
and presence of the other has ever been theirs ? 

Though it was Indian Summer, a chill wind 
would blow up sometimes about the sunset, and 
Blessington would put a protecting shawl around 
the shoulders of his wife, and drawing her hand 
within his arm, let his own linger caressingly 
upon it while he led her home. 

Will he guard her ever thus tenderly against 
all cruel winds of chance that blow upon them 
as they travel toward their setting sun ? And 
will Alvia hold him ever as the dearest source 


Jean Ingelow. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL, 127 

of pleasure to her life ? Will, perchance, a fas- 
cinating Southerner with dark and liquid eyes 
win her away from the arm upon which she 
leans to-night ? 

Shall we say, If it were not a woman like 
Alvia Melborn ; if her nature were less leal and 
true, he might ?” But with Richard Blessington 
in her heart there was simply no room for any 
other. 

Nearly a year had passed over the lives of Mr. 
and Mrs. Blessington. It was August, and they 
were together by the side of the sea. The large 
hotel was overrunning with guests and with 
gaiety. Blessington and his wife occupied a 
position in the dining-hall which commanded a 
view of the room. 

‘‘Richard,” she said, “ whom do you observe?” 

Following her eye he promptly answered, 
“ The man who offered to assist me in finding 
you on the night you sang at the concert.” 

“ And the man,” added Alvia, with a red spot 
in her cheek, “ who intercepted your letter to me.” 


128 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Just then Alvia’s father approached them, and 
the subject was dropped. 

As Mr. Melborn took his seat at the table 
Claude Levin could but notice how much 
stronger and younger he looked than he had a 
year before. The table-talk between the three 
was always genial and general, and while they 
chatted together both Blessington and Alvia 
noticed the taciturn fashion in which Levin and 
his wife were dining; the latter being the fair 
and vivacious neighbor who had visited Levin 
upon Alvia’s porch. 

Later in the evening Mr. Melborn was com- 
fortably seated with friends from the city, and 
Blessington walked with his wife upon the 
beach. The night was warm and the walk was 
crowded. Blessington suggested that they should 
find a seat in one of the pavilions. “ For you 
know,” he said, “ you have promised to sing to- 
night; it were better you should have some rest.” 

Alvia gave his arm a little pressure, saying, 
“ You are always thinking for me.” 

You are always thinking as much for me,” 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 129 

he answered, closing his fingers over her hand 
as he might have done a year before. 

In a moment more they were seated in the 
pavilion ; a little way from them, half veiled by 
the darkness, sat some one else. Ah, ‘‘ A scent 
of Eastern sandalwood, — a gleam of gold,” — a 
rustle in the dim and dusky corner, — a soft, 
white hand extended from a dark and impure 
heart, and the well-trained voice of Mrs. Levin 
exclaimed, — 

“ Mrs. Blessington ! how charmed I am to 
meet you !” 

Her eyes meanwhile were not upon Alvia, but 
upon the elegant face and figure of Alvia’s hus- 
band. Without waiting for an introduction she 
extended her hand in the most innocently genial 
manner, saying, with apparent frankness, “ This, 
I am sure, is Mr. Blessington.” 

It was seldom that Mrs. Levin failed to cap- 
tivate when she chose, and she chose, married or 
single, indiscriminately. She had companion- 
ship enough in this, in the vortex of “ high” 
society in this most exclusive resort at the beach. 


130 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

but she was a marked success in her line of 
undertaking. 

Blessington had taken her proffered hand with- 
out any answering pleasure in his face. 

“ Is he human ?” she asked herself, “ and is he 
a man ?” 

A man means something so little with a cer- 
tain class. To Mrs. Levin it meant something 
weak, and something sensual and something 
unfaithful, and something low and animal in 
contradistinction to all that is high and above 
the mere level of the brute. But then to Mrs. 
Levin, the question, “ Is she a woman ?” would 
mean, ‘‘ Is she selfish, dishonest of nature, with 
low and mean characteristics, — with passions low 
and promiscuous ?” As she dropped into a seat 
beside Blessington, uninvited, she said to her- 
self, ‘‘ I will captivate him if I sacrifice every 
other at the beach.’’ 

While exquisitely sensitive, Alvia was not a 
woman to he unreasonably jealous; hut she was 
not of so dull and heavy a temperament that she 
could not feel, nor so indifferent that she did not 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


131 


care. She was not unmindful of whose presence 
it was that could ever bring to her husband his 
dearest happiness, for she had remained, since 
their marriage as before, the one woman in the 
world to Eichard Blessington. 

It was not that they ignored society, nor did 
not mingle graciously with other men and 
women, but it was the manner in which they both 
had mingled with the world, — it was the total 
absence of coquetry that had left their hearts 
unspotted each for the other. They were one 
of the rare couples who are mated as well as 
married, hut had their standard of fealty been 
such only as is so often seen, had either ever felt 
the slightest interest of a certain type in any 
other, that interest which can be given in its per- 
fection to only one, then would there have been 
a leakage in the vessel of their fate with little to 
prevent a final shipwreck. 

But neither Alvia nor Blessington had friends 
from whom they did not ever turn with pleasure 
each to the other. Alvia was not unmindful of 
the light in her husband’s eye, that never failed 


132 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

at her approach, nor was Blessington’s heart 
slow to note and to hold as treasure the smile 
that came to his wife’s lips for him, and came 
there never just the same for any other: little 
expressions that the world might never notice, — 
hut how much they meant to each other ! Quite 
involuntary they were, but telling none the less 
for that; how each would have missed them 
from the other if gone : and the great weight 
in their value was their steadfastness. So each 
had always carried a perfect trust in the other : 
not a blind, unreasoning faith ; but a faith that 
could say, ‘‘ I know in whom I have believed.” 

Then to-night why should a little trouble stir 
itself in Alvia’s heart that had never arisen there 
before ? Was this the first bold woman that had 
essayed to throw her charms about the one she 
loved, — essayed, hut in vain ? Or was it because 
this woman once had taken another from her 
side, although it then had chanced to be but a 
deliverance ? 

Mrs. Levin was surpassingly handsome; at 
least, so the world would have said; and she 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


133 


was a coquette both of innate talent and of 
practical accomplishment. In not more than 
thirty seconds after they had met in the pavilion 
Alvia was in full possession of the fact that Mrs. 
Levin would leave no stone unturned to capti- 
vate Richard Blessington. 

And Mrs. Levin also realized a fact upon the 
first glance, that she needed to sharpen well her 
weapons for a conquest of the man before her. 
She suppressed with care the flippancy so con- 
stant to her nature; she was intense, calmly, 
deeply intense ; and she did not forget to shoot 
an arrow of admiration from her own eyes into 
his. Could it fail to reach the mark, — to pene- 
trate to the heart at which it was aimed ? Ah, 
well, — ^Blessington was a man, — it was for him 
to sin : Alvia was a woman, — it was for her to 
accept the sin. 

Alas ! it is against the ways of a certain, or 
an uncertain, society to defer to the heart that 
should he nearest and first. May there come a 
blight upon that grade of culture that blushes 
for a deference to the heart’s best love as though 
12 


134 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

guilty of a selfishness ! Let some clear bell of 
truth ‘‘ring out the old, ring in the new!” 
That new wherein both men and women of all 
the societies of the globe will glory in their 
loyalty rather than in its reverse; not resting 
content if simply drawing the line at lowest 
levels of respectability ; not proud in taking or 
in giving the longest admissible tether from 
fidelity. A new wherein will be recognized 
the right and royalty of love, and wherein a cor- 
responding fealty will be paid to it even in the 
most delicate touches upon its spirit. 

In the great strain among that circle distin- 
guished by the name of “ fashionable” to live 
beyond provincialism ; in its intense ambition 
toward cosmopolitanism, how many lose the 
head between license and liberalism 1 We do 
not refer to license in its lower, grosser forms, 
only that license which infringes in very genteel 
ways upon the sensibilities of another. Yet is 
not whatever does this always in contradistinc- 
tion to liberality, and therefore truly wncosmo- 
politan? Truth, purity, fidelity, without these 


A SKETCH TN THE IDEAL. 135 

the king himself is low ; with them the merest 
peasant is liberal and a gentleman. 

While Mrs. Levin threw her charms around 
Blessington, Alvia sat again a little aloof, as she 
had done on her own piazza a year ago, for 
again the conversation was directed exclusively 
to another than herself. A few moments of this, 
while the surf boomed and surged in the dark- 
ness just beyond the pavilion; but it fell as a 
rich chord of melody on Alvia’s soul, for did not 
Blessington’s manner hold only the attention 
necessary to good breeding ? And was she not 
aware that her husband was both able and will- 
ing to take an accurate measure of the forward- 
ness and impertinence before him? While his 
eyes were looking in due politeness upon the one 
addressing him, his heart, that heart that would 
scorn to be less than faithful, was reaching out 
in loyal sympathy to what another heart not far 
away might feel, for to Richard Blessington 
belonged in truth the name of gentleman. 

Upon the first pause he arose, saying, My 
wife has an engagement to sing this evening. 


136 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Mrs. Levin and, drawing Alvia’s hand within 
his arm, turned from the woman with a cool 
touch of his hat. 

It had been Alvia a year before who had re- 
ceived the frigid how, but it was not Alvia to- 
night. Ah, but to-night it was not Claude 
Levin, — it was Eichard Blessington. When she 
lifted her eyes to her husband’s, that quiet, lam- 
bent glow of peaceful joy shone in them that he 
had loved to call there twelve years before. 
Other men hovered about Alvia’s piano that 
night with very apparent admiration, but it was 
upon her husband, who stood there also, that 
Alvia’s kindliest and most frequent glances 
fell. 

A pair of cat-like eyes looked in upon them as 
Mrs. Levin, on the arm of a stranger, passed and 
repassed the window, upon the piazza. But Mrs. 
Levin found her new acquisition more absent of 
mind than were those generally who hung upon 
her footsteps. She watched the direction of his 
soft, dark eyes. They too were upon the group 
at the piano, fastened upon the central figure. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 137 

“ What lovely singing !” he said. ‘‘ Let us go 
inside, where we can better hear.” She acqui- 
esced through policy, and they took seats just 
within the door. The Southerner’s eyes were 
riveted upon Alvia’s face as she sang. 

‘‘ Have you ever met Mrs. Blessington ?” asked 
Mrs. Levin. 

“Both yes and no,” he replied. “I have 
dined at the same table with her, but I have 
never been presented.” 

“ You would care for an introduction, I 
imagine,” said she, with an unpleasant laugh. 

“Yes, I would care for one,” he quietly 
replied. 

A new scheme entered the fertile brain of 
Mrs. Levin and took possession of it; she at 
once took Colonel Latimer to the piano. 

Alvia was singing that charming Scotch bal- 
lad commencing, — 


“Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast 
On yonder lea, on yonder lea. 

My plaidie to the angry airt 

I'd shelter thee, I’d shelter thee.” 
12 * 


138 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Her eyes fell upon the elegant stranger with 
Mrs. Levin. The face did not look unfamiliar, 
but that was all. That she had ever seen him 
before she was scarcely aware, and she gave it 
not a second thought. 

“How perfect!” thought the Southerner, as 
he both looked and listened in rapt admiration. 

Presently the song was ended. 

“ Mrs. Blessington, allow me to present Colo- 
nel Latimer,” said Mrs. Levin. 

Colonel Latimer came to Alvia’s side, and in a 
moment was engrossing her in conversation with 
himself, while Mrs. Levin again captured Bles- 
sington for a ttte-a-itte. 

The colonel alluded to his ^'wasi-meeting with 
Mrs. Blessington in Savannah. He saw that he 
was quite unrecognized, but he desired to have 
her know that he had carried her remembrance 
with him since that time. 

In the mean time Mrs. Levin had managed 
to draw Blessington aside. 

Latimer looked over Alvia’s music praying for 
another song. “ Do you not sing yourself?” she 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


139 


asked, and one of her direct glances fell upon 
his face. 

“I? Occasionally, yes, I have sung some- 
times, but I would not care to hear my own 
singing when I can hear yours, Mrs. Blessing- 
ton.” 

But if I want to hear it,” said Alvia, laugh- 
ing, ‘^may I not? You have heard mine.” 

‘‘Such a plea who could resist?” replied he, 
with his dark eyes full upon hers. “ If you will 
give me a selection of your own I will sing it if 
I can.” 

“ You should have sung the song that I have 
just given,” answered Alvia; “I would rather 
you would select for yourself.” 

“ Let me sing you, then,” he said, “ this sweet 
old ‘Annie Laurie.’ ” 

“ And shall I play your accompaniment ?” she 
asked. 

“ Thanks ; I never play my own.” 

He was standing so directly above her now 
that she was obliged to lift her glance very 
much to reach his face. 


140 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

“ Ah, regardez votre femme , said Mrs. Levin, 
wdth her peculiar laugh that never failed to 
ring unpleasantly upon an honest ear ; “ really, a 
mutual infatuation behind the piano, is it not 

Blessington glanced over to his wife while the 
rich barytone of the colonel rendered the sweets 
of “ Annie Laurie.” 

Alvia’s face was slightly flushed, for her soul 
was ever susceptible to music, and the tender 
song, with such a rendering, by such a voice 
thrilled her. She was quite unconscious of the 
singer, she was only lost in the song, and when 
it was finished Colonel Latimer may have mis- 
taken, a little, the warmth in her face as she 
thanked him. Was there another who might 
also have misunderstood ? 

Latimer bent over her saying, “ The room is 
close and you must be tired ; will you walk upon 
the piazza ?” 

‘‘ I shall be glad to,” said she ; ‘‘ but first let 
me introduce my husband; perhaps he and Mrs. 
Levin will join us.” 

Thus with that never-forgetfulness of each 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


141 


other was their true sentiment for one another, 
their mutual love, their mutual faith, only ce- 
mented the more firmly rather than disinte- 
grated by the passing years : thus were the snags 
and shoals avoided which look so slight and 
wreck so many on the perilous river of matri- 
mony. 

That night when sitting together in their win- 
dow, as was their custom, with their trust and 
love only strengthened by the events of the 
evening (however small they may seem to have 
been), Alvia said, Richard, have we not enough 
of the place ? Shall we not go to a life that we 
both love better ?” 

He put his arm about her as he answered, 
“We will go to-morrow.” 

There was a path of shimmering silver across 
the ocean toward the moon, but Alvia felt no 
longing to-night to follow it, for her spirit’s rest 
was at her side. 

The moon, so pure, so steadfast, looked in upon 
another that night who was a better man for his 
evening with Alvia Blessington, commonplace 


142 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


though it had seemed ; for the Southern colonel 
had much of good left within a nature that had 
possessed in the beginning true and manly in- 
stincts. He had found a woman who, while 
possessing all the abilities to charm in aii}^ circle, 
scorned to use certain powers promiscuously to 
the cheapening of herself and of the one she 
loved. There was enough of the manly, the 
generous, left about Latimer to recognize the 
fact that what he had seen to-night was some- 
thing higher, and so something more satisfactory, 
than the ordinary woman in the circle to which 
he had been accustomed. While he turned un- 
comfortably on his pillow, was it the moon that 
whispered over and over to him Hood’s old 
familiar lines ? — 

“ But now 'tis little joy 

To know I’m farther off from heaven 
Than when I was a boy.” 

But the moon whispered nothing ennobling to 
Mrs. Levin as she laid her head on her pillow. 
The next day her eyes were more than cat-like 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


143 


as she watched Blessington drive to the station 
with his wife. 

And now again it is summer, again a year has 
rolled around. Again Mr. Melborn and Mr. 
and Mrs. Blessington are by the side of the sea. 
It is two years now, nearly, for it is August, 
since that quiet, blissful wedding in an almost 
empty church. Yes, empty of gazers; there 
had been none to discuss, appreciate, or depre- 
ciate the bridal garments ; but how many 
crowded edifices have been far more of a 
vacuum than this had been, with its quiet sun- 
beams creeping in, in unmolested bars of gold, 
while the wedding pair had stood before the 
altar and the solemnly sweet moment of their 
lives had been all their own ! 

Almost two years since then. Low, slant 
beams of sunlight now tinge the beach with 
pink, and the edge of the pavilion, and the 
caps of ocean waves. Alvia sits upon the sand 
and watches for a boat, for her husband is with 
a fishing-party on the water. With one hand 


144 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

she gently rocks a little coach, while Mammy sits 
with proud, admiring gaze near by. It is not a 
fashionable hour to be on the beach ; most of the 
women are napping or dressing; the men “put- 
ting in” their time as best they may, — perchance 
in billiard- or bar-room. It is not just time yet 
to gossip or flirt or dance ; but the hour is lovely 
on the beach, — the almost deserted beach. 

“ Swish — swush — swish — swush,” sings the 
flowing tide upon the sand, — a soothing lullaby 
to the little sleeper at Alvia’s side. 

Oh, Alvia ! let your fond eyes rest upon the 
little sleeping face while yet they may. Touch 
softly, 0 tender, mother-hand! that little tress 
of sunny hair. 

“ Swish — swush — swish — swush,” the waves 
sing on. 

What waves will sing to the baby when it 
shall fall upon that last, long sleep ? Will the 
voice of God’s love chant a low, sweet song to it 
through some other waves of sound upon the 
far-off shore ? Can the mother’s ear catch their 
echo and be comforted? If she can hear one 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. I45 

faint reverberation from that dark Unseen it will 
only be by leaning her ear close upon the heart 
of the Creator. 

There was perfect communion of spirit be- 
tween Richard Blessington and his wife as the 
years passed on, and now a decade has glided 
by since their wedding-day. Troubles there 
have been for them, for what ten years passes 
over a heart without leaving its track of pain 
as well as bliss ? 

The little golden ringlets of their child lie beside 
the thin and silvered locks of Alvia’s father be- 
neath the lilies and forget-me-nots. Mammy also 
lies in a corner of the Melborn cemetery-lot, and 
her faithful heart is covered too with flowers. 

But one sorrow has been kept at bay, the sor- 
row of a lonely life ; for Blessington is Alvia’s 
lover still, and her heart is not slow with its 
response. 

Little but emptiness and restlessness have fol- 
lowed the days of Mr. and Mrs. Levin. In the 
beginning a little ashamed of whatever love ex- 
isted between them, fain to follow a fashion 
Q k 13 


146 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


which is not good, to the ignoring the one of 
the other, each now finds the other the last 
from whom to expect any happiness, any ap- 
proval, any sympathy in life. Their haunts are 
ever in the midst of what they call society, but 
does it satisfy their lives ? A society of dress, 
of gossip, of heart-burnings; a society of dis- 
play and emulations ; a society h la frangaise, 
wherein flirtation flourishes more readily after 
marriage than before ; a society the extreme of 
which has been said, alas ! too well said, to meet 
another extreme ; its danger seeming to lie in 
its false cultivation, the evil of the other being 
the result of absence of culture of any kind. 
Only to the thinkers does the world owe what it 
has of well-being; to those alone who do not ig- 
nore the moral, the intellectual, the spiritual. 
Very surely it is not to the dilettante of “ fashion.” 

Claude Levin and his wife are lonely, for what 
heart ever found its rest upon a crowd? A 
crowd may give fame, but it cannot give love; 
and the heart must come back from its flutter 
over the world without the olive-branch if it 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


147 


find not love; for though one have many friend- 
ships, upon love alone can the heart find rest. 

In the ten years just passed Blessington and 
Alvia had lived their lives well. An ornament 
to any circle, their position had been held with 
little strain of thought upon sumptuous living. 
Both had taken their part nobly toward each 
other and toward the world in contact with 
them. 

They had travelled generously in their own 
country and across the sea, and in their travels 
Blessington as a new departure had occasion- 
ally written. He had a perfect sympathy from 
his wife in every thought that came from his 
pen, and his words were ever met by a ready 
welcome from the world without. When he 
came with his manuscript to Alvia, she never 
failed him with smiles for his humor or tears for 
his pathos, with sympathy in his every thought ; 
and often he had looked fondly upon her and 
told her that she had been his inspiration. 

If he did not find his writing a deuced,’’ he 
found it at least a ‘‘ pleasant,” occupation ; and 


148 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


many a cosey little laugh he and Alvia had to- 
gether concerning those works of Mr. Leston 
not yet apparent to the world. 

And now one evening in the winter gloaming 
Blessington walked through the frosty air toward 
his home, picturing to himself the quiet library 
in the twilight with its glowing embers on the 
hearth, and with the dear, sweet face that never 
failed to hold its vigil by the window. As he 
passed other homes of luxury and elegance he 
liked well to see the lighted windows, with bright 
rays streaming out over lawn and piazza, hut 
in his own home he liked better the face of his 
wife gleaming white in the dusky setting of the 
twilight window. That pale, fair face was a 
beacon-light to him. The hall and other rooms 
might he brilliant, — Alvia took care that they 
always were, — but he liked the dusky shadows 
in the library, with the glow of embers on the 
hearth. This was where Alvia would meet him, 
would sit beside him before the cheery coals, and 
they would not find it irksome, for their spirits 
were at one. As he passed by the other homes. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. I49 

outwardly so fair, mauy far wealthier than his, 
he was drawing in his mind the probable con- 
trast between their happiness and the happiness 
of his own. 

“ There is one,” he was saying to himself, “ to 
watch for the coming of my steps, one to care 
ever, when I come and whither I go.” How 
truly Chateaubriand has said that the real ten- 
dency of the human heart is toward unity ! This 
one was more to Blessington, brought his soul 
more comfort, than could any division of his 
heart. Each night as he came within sight of 
his home his eye turned always toward a certain 
window, and he never forgot to raise his hat to the 
face behind the pane. But to-night in the place 
of the white face in the twilight there was only 
a blank glare of light. 

Such a little thing ! it would have been noth- 
ing to so many men, hut Blessington hastened 
his steps with an uneasy heart. He tried to re- 
assure himself, but in vain. When he reached 
the door there was no Alvia to greet him with 
happy eyes, The waiter was to-night under in- 
13 * 


150 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


structions, on the watch for his latch-key. He 
announced with some pomposity that Mrs. Bles- 
sington had received a message only half an 
hour before, which had been delivered to her by 
a rough of the lowest class ; that she had has- 
tily prepared to leave the house with him, and 
that he, the waiter, had, under her orders, culled 
some of the sweetest flowers of the conservatory, 
which she had taken with her, besides wine and 
fruit from the pantry, all gathered together with 
the greatest speed. 

‘‘ And you permitted Mrs. Blessington to go 
out alone in the night with the ruffian ?’’ Bles- 
sington was angry indeed. 

“I asked her, sah, if she wouldn’t hev the 
carriage, but she only said she hadn’t no time, 
and ” 

‘^And you didn’t insist upon walking along! 
You may go to the kitchen,” said Blessington ; 
he felt tried to a point he but rarely reached. 
As Charles retreated down the hall he stam- 
mered that Mrs. Blessington had left a message. 

“Very well,” said Blessington, ‘‘deliver it 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


151 


where you are.” The man muttered that Mrs. 
Blessington had bid him say a dying child had 
sent for her and that Mr. Blessington should 
not wait upon her to dine. “ And Mrs. Bles- 
sington told me just as she was a-leavin’ the 
door,” he added, “ that I must light the library 
before you come in, sah.” 

Within the kitchen Charles marvelled aloud, 
‘‘Don’t understand what’s twisted de boss, — 
never seen him dat a-way before ! Here when I 
smashed one of them big parlor panes o’ glass 
de other day a-cleanin’ it, and felt so done out 
about it, he says, ‘ JSTever mind, Charles, it won’t 
happen ag’in,’ and went right on a-readin’ his 
paper, — he was settin’ on de porch, — and now 
here when I ain’t been doin’ nothin’, as I see, I 
never seen him so clean mad before. I’ve saw 
him pass enuff things what would make me 
furous.” 

Blessington entered the library feeling forlorn. 
Everything was in order, for there was never 
anything else in Alvia’s home. Hot stiffness, 
but that perfect arrangement combining easy 


152 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


grace with a sense of repose. The table under 
the light was generously strewn with the journals 
and periodicals of the day, while scattered about 
were rare little vases holding fragrant flowers. 
The wood blazed cheerfully on the andirons, and 
the friendly books and pictures looked out upon 
their owner from the walls ; but he could only 
stand at the window with his hands in his 
pockets and strain his eyes along the darksome 
road. Presently, ringing for Charles, he in- 
quired in which direction Mrs. Blessington had 
gone. 

“ I didn’t take notice, sah.” 

That will do,” said Blessington. 

Finally, in the deepening dusk, thinking of 
the rough with whom his wife had gone, and the 
lonely suburban streets or lanes through which 
she must pass, he could bear it no longer. He 
turned his back on the light and warmth, and 
the invitation to rest so plainly though mutely 
spoke, and, readjusting overcoat and hat, started 
forth again under the December stars. True, 
his walk must be somewhat aimless, as he had 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


153 


no idea in which direction to seek his wife ; but 
action, however objectless, in a time of worried 
suspense is ever more acceptable than waiting. 
As he walked along the lonely streets and lanes 
the emptiness of his home without the one spirit 
that was light and warmth and rest to him came 
forcibly before him. 

Ah, home, — home! How much may be in 
that word, yet how little 1 It was not alone in 
Alvia that Blessington’s home was what it was. 
Neither man nor woman alone can make a 
home; the making lies as much with one as with 
the other. How much less frequent would be 
the proverbial, careless wife, keeping both her- 
self and her house slipshod and down at the 
heel, did not the husband lose the lover, did not 
the efforts of the wife soon seem but unavailing, 
meeting nothing but a dull indifference from 
the eye she strives to please ! What woman 
will long rejoice in her own best appearance, at 
home, with a husband who enters it scarce seem- 
ing to see her; who remains to his meals in pre- 
occupied fashion, and leaves his house again (we 


154 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


will not say his home) with only careless indif- 
ference marking all his ways. This man’s home 
is not within his own domicile, for his heart is 
elsewhere. It may he the club is his real home ; 
it may be nothing but his pursuit of moneyed 
gain can interest him ; it may be, a new woman. 
!N*o matter which, if the result be indifference at 
home it will surely breed indifference in the 
heart and in the w.ays of the wife. 

Blessington’s was an ideal home. Husband 
and wife each had their freedom, but this was not 
their best of home. To them it was not merely 
a feeding- and a sleeping-house : to go and come 
unquestioned was not their first ambition within 
its doors. Blessington’s home was the goal of 
the day to him, but its physical comforts and 
elegance alone could not thus have drawn him. 
When a man leaves his home it is not to go into 
some empty solitude, however comfortable and 
beautiful; it is companionship of one kind or 
another that he seeks. 

It was Alvia’s spirit that was home to Bles- 
sington, touching with its own peculiar light 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. I55 

all its surroundings. Blessington cared for this 
spirit more than for aught else in the world ; it 
was in touch with himself, and they were happy. 
On this night he seemed to realize Alvia’s ab- 
sence more keenly than he had ever done be- 
fore. A vision of that day when she might 
be gone forever settled upon him. 

He knew that his wife had followed all fear- 
lessly such escort as she had to pilot her way, for 
although she would have dreaded a lonely meet- 
ing with such at another time, her nature would 
never suspect that upon errand like this any 
human creature could be anything less than 
her protector. 

There was one little settlement of shanties 
about half a mile westward, and up a lonely lane 
northward were two or three houses to which he 
thought she might have gone ; further than this 
he had no clue. He concluded to try the north- 
erly direction, it being the more lonely of the 
two. He turned up the narrow lane with its last 
year’s grasses dried on either side and stiff brown 
weed-stalks standing like spectres in the dusk. 


156 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


The shadows of the bushes and pines scattered 
along the road were oppressive to him, — each 
moment the dread in his heart grew heavier. 
The ground scarcely crunched under his firm 
tread : it was frozen, there were no footprints 
to follow. The rustle of a dried leaf, the sud- 
den apparition of a white cat, seemed to bring 
new dread with them; and the cold, cold stars, 
— how far away and unhelpful they seemed ! He 
had glanced at them once, — he could not look 
again, — those stars that Alvia loved. Then he 
would try to smile to himself, picturing Alvia’s 
face awaiting him in the warm, bright library, 
but the face would be warmer, brighter still. 
Her soft little white hands would draw off his 
gloves as they had done so often and so tenderly; 
her true eyes would be there as loving as of old, 
— why could he not be comforted? She was 
thinking of him now, waiting for him, watch- 
ing for him ; yet he walked on. 

But this time Alvia was not thinking of him, 
waiting for him, watching for him ; neither was 
she lying dead along the road; she was only 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. I57 

kneeling in a dingj^ wretched little room striving 
to bring some light to the eyes, some comfort to 
the heart of a dying, friendless child. 

Poor little Bill ! 

A scanty candle served to show the shadows 
lurking in the corners, and also a pale, wan, 
childish face with large eyes casting terrified 
glances into the gloom. The woman that little 
Bill called mother sat aloof without a touch of 
humanity for the last hour of her boy ; a young 
man of the neighborhood had gone, at the 
child’s request, for Mrs. Blessington. 

It was a sore touch on Alvia’s heart and mem- 
ory as she bent over the child in his last agony, 
but she checked her own tears to smile into the 
boy’s dying eyes. Very tenderly she put the 
flowers into his hard little hand and he looked 
with surprise to her face ; no one had ever 
thought it worth while to give him anything 
so beautiful. She understood his glance and 
answered, “ Yes, they are yours to keep.” 

He pressed the roses and violets to his little 
tear-stained face. 


14 


158 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“ I used ter like ter look through the fences at 
flowers in the gardens,” he said, a tear coming 
to his eye. 

“ Yes,” she answered, and you will look at 
lovely flowers again, and have them too,” refer- 
ring to flowers in heaven. 

“ IjTo, Miss Blessin’ton,” he said, with a shake 
of the head, everything’s all done. I’m a- 
dyin’, — the doctor outen the hospital down there 
come, an’ he said as I was a-dyin’ an’ it wa’n’t no 
use fur to come no more. An’ I’m afeard ! I’m 
so afeard !” said the little fellow, breaking into a 
sob, his eyes glancing furtively again into the 
shadows. 

Alvia saw his breath growing feebler. She 
poured out some wine and gave him. 

‘‘ Rest a few minutes,” she said, ‘‘ while I 
hold this dear little hand of yours.” And as 
Alvia took the uncouth childish hand in hers, 
her great pity overcame every other feeling. 

The child looked up. “Yohody hain’t ever 
said nothing like that to me before,” he whis- 
pered. ‘‘ Miss Blessin’ton, I hain’t never forgot 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


159 


you since the day I was up to your house — with 
them — matches — an’ bananas,” — he paused for 
breath — “ an’ you spoke so good — an’ kind — ter 
me, an’ give me all that cake, — an’, an’ told me 
not ter hurry, ter set — on the steps — as long as I 
wanted ter. I hain’t never forgot — a word that 
you — said, — an’ you looked so very purty — at me. 
I thought — if I could only live — with you — an’ 
run errands — for you — an’ set on your kitchen 
steps, — I wouldn’t never — care — whether you 
paid me fur — workin’ — fur you if you’d — look 
so smilin’ — an’ kind at me.” 

Alvia was all the time caressing his thin hand 
and with her own handkerchief wiping the 
damp from his brow. 

Wine and rest again revived him and he went 
on. 

“ When the doctor said to mam as I was 
a-dyin’, I thought of you an’ how as if you 
could help me.” His eyes looked wistfully, 
searchingly, into hers. 

And Alvia, realizing that there was no other 
to mother the dying child, bent tenderly over 


160 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


him and sighed as she felt the hopeless task of 
bringing light to this poor little waif trembling 
on the brink of another world. “ God will help 
him soon if I cannot,” she tried to comfort her- 
self with the thought, but she longed to take 
away the terror from the dying boy. Looking 
into the wistful eyes, she tried to undo mistaken 
work where blind had been leaders of the blind, 
and so the message she brought was the message 
of love, — not a conditional love — conditional 
upon some superhuman belief. And to what- 
ever God gives life he gives growth,” her sweet 
voice spoke, “ so all his living creatures are 
growing, growing toward something better: 
always toward something better and brighter. 
Bill, although sometimes it may not seem so.” 

“ Is that it ?” said the boy, brightening. 

“It is a hard way to find that beautiful 
world,” she continued ; “ but we must all go to 
it through the one gate called death ; some day I 
too will be passing through.” 

“ But you will be an angel,” he said, looking 
up innocently into her face. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


161 


“ I will only be a child of the good Father,” 
she answered, gently; ‘‘and you are one of his 
children, too.” 

The dread began to vanish from the child’s 
face. “ Then is it all heaven ?” he asked. 

“ There is no hopeless place of terror,” said 
Alvia, and as she spoke she looked into the boy’s 
dimming dying eyes and felt the reality of her 
assertion. “ It is the Spirit-land, a part of the 
Father’s kingdom, and lovelier than this lower 
plane we have lived on here,” she continued, 
feeling that some higher voice than her own 
was speaking, “and people will learn there to 
grow better and better just as they learn often to 
grow better here. As we learn to love what 
is good and grow better, so we will be happier 
and happier, and sorrow and darkness will be 
left behind. You need not be afraid of God; 
it is always those who are the best that are the 
kindest; the really good ones are always kind. 
Bill, do you understand that ?” 

“Yes, Miss Blessin’ton,” whispered Bill, 
“ seein’ you has made me b’lieve that.” 

I 14 * 


162 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


Then,” she said, “ God will be so much more 
kind and gentle to you than I am. They made 
you think that He is terrible because they did 
not understand him, but they will when they 
see his face. Bill, the most loving face, far kinder 
than you can even think of. It is only doing 
wrong that is terrible ; and He is ever striving, 
striving to help us away from that, because he 
loves us.” 

The boy’s eyes grew very calm and peaceful. 
Alvia was silent a moment to let him rest. 
“ Then — I will — love — Him,” he gasped. 

‘‘Yes, my dear child, you will love Him,” was 
the answer. 

“ And I will never — want — to be bad.” 

Alvia smiled into his eyes and pressed his 
wasted hand. She tried to give him grapes that 
she had brought, but the little one must wait now 
for fruit from the tree of life. Leaning down 
to him, she said in a distinct voice, “ Little 
darling !” 

One happy flash came into the childish eyes 
and little Bill was gone, — gone to another sphere 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 163 

of action under the wise and loving guidance of 
his Creator. 

And so the child must die, to hear just once 
that sweet word, darling.” But even death 
failed to bring one touch of tenderness from the 
woman that called herself his mother. She 
went to some other part of the rickety building 
muttering profanely on her way, and Alvia re- 
mained many minutes by the motionless little 
figure, dreading to leave it to the mercy of those 
that were near; feeling that sensibilities may 
linger after all power of expression is gone. If 
a stranger can so care for him, what will there he 
for him in the heart of his Creator? Some 
thought like this passed through Alvia’s mind as 
she tried to smooth his matted hair. 

The rough little hand was still clasping the 
flowers she had put within it, and Alvia left it 
so; and as she lingered over the pale, pinched 
face, pinched for want of spiritual as well as 
physical sustenance, tender grey eyes were look- 
ing in upon them through the grimy window, 
and looking, too, through mist of their own. 


164 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


When, stepping out into the darkness, Alvia 
met the greeting of that faithful voice, how in an 
instant the world was changed again to her, and 
the dark impression hovering over her was swept 
away ! 

‘‘ You are safe, thank God !” said Blessington, 
and he bent down among the shades of night 
and kissed her as lovers kiss. 

‘‘ j^nd you,’’ said Alvia, are not resting at 
home and eating your dinner, — tired and hungry 
as you are.” He was sure that through his over- 
coat sleeve he could feel a soft cheek pressing. 

As they walked closely together up the field- 
flanked lane, that was unlighted save by the pale 
“light of stars,” they talked together of little 
Bill. 

“ I was not too late,” said Alvia, — “ not too 
late to give the child peace from his cruel fore- 
bodings, nor to give his little soul one taste of 
love. That terrible woman ! perhaps God’s 
great love can some time, somewhere, reach her 
heart. I am sure no other can.” 

“ Our own darling would have been just about 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


165 


the size of this poor little fellow,” said Blessing- 
ton, in a husky voice, and both were for a long 
while silent. 

At last Alvia said, ‘‘ If we could only know of 
a Beyond toward w^hich we send our hopes ; this 
I know is but the common cry of humanity; 
but I know there are no terrors waiting there, 
such as the Book has pictured.” 

‘‘We must remember the age and the country 
in which the Book was written,” answered Bles- 
sington. “I believe that the more intelligent 
members of orthodoxy cling to their old ideas 
of the Bible’s inspiration, cling to it so tena- 
ciously, only because of the great longing for 
some proof of a life to come ; I believe that is the 
real secret of much of the sustained orthodoxy of to- 
day ; but we can trust, and bide His time. You 
recall in the history of Jesus how it is told of His 
saying, ‘ This generation seeketh after a sign.’ 

“It is natural that we all seek after that 
sign. The orthodox speak much of trust, but it 
is the heretic of to-day who does the grandest 
trusting; for orthodoxy seeks proof before it 


1(36 A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

trusts; the proof of a Bible spoken by direct and 
unmistakable (?) word of God, the proof of proph- 
ecy, the proof of miracle ; and so, in anxiety to 
grasp a heaven, hell too is stowed away ; generally 
now, however, somewhere in the background. 
But where is the Bible as it has been taught for 
centuries ? Where is prophecy ? Where is mira- 
cle ? To complete a prophecy as to the Christ 
being a lineal descendant of David, the son 
of Jesse, one may behold for one’s self in the 
very opening pages of our ^'New Testament’ 
a direct contradiction to the doctrine of the 
Immaculate Conception, for the descent from 
King David is upon Joseph’s side of the house. 
And as to the proof by miracle, the bibles of 
other nations, the bibles of pagan beliefs, have 
also their miracles, so we cannot place so much 
stress upon those of our own. We have, after 
all, as much, nay, better, than the ‘ orthodox,’ 
if they did but see it, for their alternative from 
heaven is hell, and our alternative is, at the worst, 
annihilation. 

“ But comfort founded upon a rock that cannot 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


167 


be washed away we have when we open our 
eyes to the light that shines about us, — the light 
of God^s grand law of progress, — that light 
wherein one who runs may read. 

‘‘ My darling,” he added, ‘‘ I have been for- 
getting that holy hands, passed along in some 
way from St. Peter, who carries the keys, you 
know, have never been laid upon my head; 
forgetting that I am not standing in a pulpit, 
but I know of some one to whom I may even 
stand and preach,” he said, with a smile. And 
the smile that never failed him came back to 
him for answer. 

“ Have you thought,” said Alvia, in reveren- 
tial tones, ‘‘ how love can outlive grief? How the 
time comes when we smile, notwithstanding the 
loss of those that are dearer to us than our own 
lives? There have been times when my heart 
has chided itself with bitter tears that I could 
seem to forget that they have suffered, and they 
have gone ; but oh, I love them, love them still 
the same !” she said, her voice breaking. 

“Yes,” he answered, and it hurts you as 


168 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


keenly now when you recall their suffering as 
it did in those first terrible days. It is no evi- 
dence that love wanes because we do not always 
live in the presence of grief. Is it not rather 
that love is more deathless even than sorrow? 
Love is in the heart the same whether it reach 
forward or backward, if the heart hold its yearn- 
ing tenderness still for dear ones gone. Here 
Hope leads the way, though Memory lingers 
with tender gaze behind. In heaven, Hope and 
Memory will meet.” 

Five years more tripped lightly over the heads 
of Blessington and his wife. To them the years 
had been peaceful, but not peaceful alone. Be- 
tween their spirits no little sprite of ennui had 
ever slipped. Life had not drifted into mere 
existence between them, — though peaceful, it 
was life still; warm, joyful life. Alvia never 
lived in any way quite so much as in Blessing- 
ton’s presence, nor Blessington as in hers. Some 
sunny table-land they seemed to have reached, 
high and calm, but blissful. And now Alvia is 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


169 


over forty-five and Blessington nearly sixty years 
of age, but she still retains the slender figure 
and grace of her girlhood, and in looking into 
her face with its clear eyes and delicate outlines, 
one could scarcely realize her to be beyond the 
period of far younger days. Alvia, her husband 
believes, would never lose a certain freshness 
should she reach her first century, and Blessing- 
ton will ever be the most elegant man that Alvia 
has seen. But while they speak ever words of 
true consideration of each other, they are too 
wise and too well-bred to speak foolishly, and 
so they seldom provoke the world’s smile. 

Yet neither Blessington nor his wife have 
ever felt it obligatory to ignore one another 
when in the presence of ‘‘ society.” They have 
never made efibrt to conceal, from an overween- 
ing regard for the presence of others, or from a 
cowardly reluctance to acknowledge before the 
wmrld their true sentiment, that deference to 
each other’s feelings, that watchful regard for 
each other’s comfort, that has kept their mutual 
love what it is; though, on the other hand, they 


170 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

would have been the last to make any fulsome 
display of this regard. It was simply always 
evident, yet never too apparent. 

Visitors were frequent and welcome in their 
home, hut they counted the days when they were 
alone as their very best and sweetest. 

Alvia never forgot to smile on the little ped- 
ler boys that came in her way, and often the 
beauty about her would send a pain to her heart 
as she remembered the home of little Bill. 

"When in the long summer days, while holding 
her evening vigil on the piazza, Blessington 
would come, Alvia would be happy in his pres- 
ence, happy in the pleasure she felt he had in 
hers; for, as the Swedenborgian would say, fhe 
spheres emanating from her husband were spheres 
not only of a negative content but of a positive 
happiness in her companionship; and do not 
these mute yet much-speaking spheres make 
what we are to each other ? 

One evening in June, when they were sitting 
thus together on their broad piazza, where the 
roses and honeysuckles climbed, the same roses 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 171 

and honeysuckles that once had transmitted 
their subtile perfume to Blessington through the 
medium of memory, the crunching of wheels on 
the gravelled drive announced an approach, and 
a distant relative of Alvia’s alighted of whom 
she was not very especially fond. 

Arrietta was a maiden of some thirty sum- 
mers; her notable talent was suggestiveness in 
the affairs of others. 

Blessington, being a gentleman in matters 
beyond his tailor and his English, remembered 
the part of host ; but because Arrietta was jolly 
in her way, and because,, moreover, she was a 
woman, and because, furthermore, she was some- 
thing new, Blessington might, for the nonce, have 
amused himself after the manner of many men, 
taking refuge under his wife’s intimacy. But had 
Arrietta been many times as attractive as she was, 
and many times as new, Blessington would have 
treated the opportunity as he ever bad treated 
such opportunities, with a superior indifference. 

He was probably very unconventional, — at 
least his married life had not been failure. 


172 ^ SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 

How many men presume upon their wives’ 
brooking familiar ways with other women be- 
cause of the wife’s fear to receive the epithet 
“jealous!” for how many women have not the 
courage to resent the lighter infidelities : the 
wisdom to recognize them frankly as of the same 
nature and part and parcel of an unfaithfulness 
which is gross enough to command the recogni- 
tion of the law ! But these little springs feed 
the mighty rivers, and did they not, a drop of 
water is as much a drop of water when found in 
rivulet as in river. Women can thank or blame 
themselves for much in this line which arises 
from their own weak toleration, their own mis- 
taken ideas of mortification and pride. 

With Alvia and Blessington there had been 
no temptation to these small insidious evils ; and 
with them that couleur de rose so proverbial for 
fading had been a fast color. 

“ Who do you think I met on the train ?” said 
Arrietta, as she took a seat on the piazza, — “ Mr. 
Percy Leston and his wife.” 

“ Yes ?” said Alvia. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


173 


“ Why, you don’t seem surprised !” said 
Arrietta. “Did you know he was married?” 

“ Yes ; we had cards,” said Alvia. 

“Did you go to the wedding?” asked her 
cousin. 

“No; we regretted.” 

“ Why ! do you know who the Featheringtons 
are ? Exceedingly stylish people.” 

“ Oh, yes, I know them quite well ; Richard 
didn’t care about going, and I wasn’t at all sorry 
to stay at home.” 

“ What old fogies you are !” said Arrietta. “ I 
should imagine you’d have enough of home.” 

“I believe many people do,” said Alvia, 
smiling. 

“ But don’t you want to know what the bride 
wore on the train ?” asked Arrietta. “ Fawn 
color, with gimp one shade darker, with panels 
of seal-brown silk and a very narrow bias fluting 
in ” 

Here Blessington put his hands in his pockets 
and sauntered into the garden. He pitied his 
wife as he walked about in his freedom, imag- 
es* 


174 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


ining the technicalities of the modiste to be as 
much of an infliction to her as to himself, and 
he was not very far wrong. ITeither Blessing- 
ton’s soul nor his wife’s had ever been thrown 
entirely into the question whether their cloth 
should be ‘‘ on the bias” or on the straight. 

He came back just in time to hear that noth- 
ing but the death of Boston’s father had enabled 
him to marry at the age of forty-one. 

“ Why don’t you wear your dresses short, 
Alvia ?” pursued Arrietta ; “ they’re so much 
more fashionable now. Cousin Camelia in Hew 
York, you know, has had all her summer gowns 
made short.” 

“Fashion is not eternal,” answered Alvia, 
laughing, “ but grace is.” 

“ Then that twist of hair is eternal too, I 
suppose,” said Arrietta, returning the laugh, for 
she was not ill-natured; “but,” she continued, 
“everybody’s wearing their hair on the top 
now.” 

“ Whether it harmonizes with the face or 
not,” remarked Alvia, pleasantly. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


175 


And their guest departed. 

“ What a blessing it is to some man that 
Arrietta is an old maid!” said Blessington, 
“ though I think she might have answered 
nicely for Leston.” 

One day in a peaceful afternoon hour Bles- 
sington asked his wife if she would like a breath 
of mountain air, and she replied that she would 
like it much. The vines about the piazza 
seemed to wave a gentle dissent, but something 
far more imperative would have weighed noth- 
ing with Alvia where Eichard’s wish was con- 
cerned. 

‘‘ I have been longing for the old spot,” he 
said ; “ shall we go there, Alvia ?” 

Had he expressed a desire to travel in the most 
uninviting direction, Alvia would have repressed 
any disinclination of her own, feeling it but hap- 
piness to acquiesce in wish of his, but it was the 
place toward which her own heart was reaching. 

Within a fortnight they had journeyed thither, 
and were drinking once more from the moun- 
tains a spiritual as well as physical tonic. 


176 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


CHAPTER YI. 

As life passes our dreams pass too, — our dreams 
of hope ; of marriage, of fame, of love ; and 
when, in reality, the frosts and the shadows 
creep about us, our last dream comes to us, and 
we dream of heaven. Hot the heaven of St. 
John, — no, no; we never dream of that; we 
may think sometimes of that, but we never 
dream of it. If the soul in its natural aspira- 
tions dreams of good to come, it dreams of 
truer, freer, deeper life, — a life with widened op- 
portunities ; and it dreams of the faces that are 
gone. 

All the kindreds, all the peoples of the earth, 
have dreamed of a Beyond, therefore is it not a 
whisper from the Eternal ? 

The Mohammedan in his sensual paradise; 
the Buddhist in his Hirvana; the Christian in 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


177 


his Apocalypse ; how widely divergent ! Even 
the child of the forest, in the poetic simplicity 
of untrained thought, dreams of his Happy 
Hunting-Grounds ! Yet are all, the breathings 
of hearts that reach toward the one goal of 
Immortality. 

And as each nation has pictured it in its own 
peculiar way, so can every individual soul best 
fashion unto itself an image of its Euture. 

But has man been able ever, with all the free- 
dom of imagination, to hold forth a vision of 
heaven that can satisfy the instincts of the soul ? 
Who that is fully honest with himself will not 
turn with repulsion from the imaginations of 
St. John ? It matters not if we try to tell our- 
selves they are symbolical. Wherein lies the 
service of symbols like unto these ? What spirit 
can deny that the heaven of the past has only 
been acceptable as a better place than its hell ? 
And who would leave the freedom of action, the 
love and the achievement of the life that is 
vouchsafed to us here, for the picture that is 
presented in what we call the Book of K-evela- 


178 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


tion ? Are there any among us who long with 
any fervor for a life of praise and worship like 
unto that ? What, then, would be to us the flow- 
ing of a crystal river and pathways laid in gold ? 
Could the crown and the robes and the palms 
compensate for such an eternity ? A little less 
robe and palm, and crown on the forehead, a 
little more life and action and love, we all prove 
by our daily living would be far more heavenly 
to our tastes. Are we to be more narrowed and 
hampered there in our sphere of life than here ? 
And will our best conceptions of Deity picture 
our God as requiring, nay, tolerating that end- 
less psalm-singing, palm-waving adulation ? Will 
He not the rather joy in the growth of the vari- 
ous powers He has given within us ? Is His heart 
not a heart of sympathy ? Is there another that 
could rejoice as He in our individual growth, 
our unselfish affections ? Will there be there no 
individual hopes, no home joys ? Will no little 
arms cling about our necks, no little feet hasten 
at our approach? Will we never know the bliss 
of giving? Of comforting some soul less for- 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


179 


tunate than ourselves ? Then heaven were no 
longer heaven, and it were well to close the eyes 
and sleep. 

But newer, better views of those Everlasting 
Hills have arisen upon the spirit of later days, 
and who shall say that ‘‘ A Little Pilgrim in the 
Unseen” is not a truer inspiration than the 
visions of beasts and seals handed down to us 
from the exile of Patmos ? 

When Blessington and Alvia reached their 
beloved Catskills they went to the little hotel 
of earlier days, that they might reach again the 
spots interwoven with memory; then, after 
spending some days among their old haunts, 
settled themselves in a larger house on one of 
the summits. There they remained from week to 
week, until autumn dropped her dreamy, golden 
days upon them once again. 

One perfect day late in September Blessington 
said to Alvia, Very soon the house will close, 
just when the mountains are the fairest and the 
loveliest. We cannot have our Indian Summer 


180 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


here, — here where Indian Summer would seem 
a glimpse of some eternal sphere of bliss.’’ 

“Ho,” said Alvia; “but to-day seems some- 
thing like it, and you alone, without any acces- 
sary, make my life one blissful Indian Summer, 
Eichard.” 

Blessington felt that the words came from her 
soul. His face flushed a little and held that 
happy w^armth that Alvia loved to see. Then 
she felt his strong arm creep about her waist 
and hold her closely, flrmly, as it might have 
done some flfteen years before. They were 
sitting on a rock projecting from the mountain- 
side and embowered by forest growth. The 
hour was blissfully happy to them both. Even, 
the crimped lichens on the rock fastened their 
image on Alvia’s mind to cling there through 
coming time. On either side of them, above 
them, and stretching far below down the moun- 
tain, was the forest; and through the branches 
of nearer trees they had glimpses of the valley 
below and of the sky above. The air about them 
was very calm and gentle, the sky above was 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 1^1 

very blue. A golden, gauzy veil of mist hung 
upon the distance, — all the harsher points of ter- 
restrial things seemed softened away, and peace 
seemed then to Blessington and his wife to be 
the spirit brooding over life. Across the rock 
that was bald and grey one spray of brilliant 
scarlet had twined itself, holding its face toward 
heaven. The sunbeams sifted through the tree 
above them, making a fantastic, wavering patch- 
work of light and shadow among the foliage 
and on the lichen-covered rock. Sometimes a 
squirrel ventured near, feeling their presence 
scarcely an intrusion. Blessington took a spider 
from Alvia’s shoulder with all the care and 
courtesy of a lover, and Alvia (some of the 
squirrels must have told it) touched her lips 
to the hand that brushed it away. Then some- 
thing touched her cheek, — a mass of whiskers 
now very generously sprinkled with grey, — and 
Blessington looking down to her face told his 
wife of the fulness she had ever brought his 
heart. 

“ It has been better than spring,” he said. 

16 


182 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“ Spring is a season of promise, but we have had 
(and have) what few, I fear, do have, — the fruition 
of that promise. It has indeed been Indian 
Summer, if to your heart, as much to mine. 
Indian Summer in its deep, rich, blessed calm ; 
Indian Summer, holding within its embrace the 
garnered fruitage of the year ; Indian Summer, 
with its brooding peace that whispers of eter- 
nity.’’ 

As they sat together with the silver not only 
in threads hut in hands now through Alvia’s 
hair and her husband’s, though the vista of this 
life was growing very short before them ; though 
there was little of novelty left to tempt their an- 
ticipations, they were still peacefully, blissfully 
happy, for they had foundation in their own 
and in each other’s spirits for this. 

While they talked in the full enjoyment of 
one another and of the scene surrounding them, 
Blessington said, “ I would take its portrait with 
my pen if I might, hut I cannot.” 

“We need Mr. Leston to equal that require- 
ment,” his wife answered, smiling. 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 133 

“ The valley seems always asleep,’^ said he, 
musingly ; ‘‘ it is hard to realize, simply because 
we cannot hear or see it, that there is sound and 
motion there ; and so it is hard for us to realize 
a life beyond the grave, simply because no sight, 
no sound, can reach us from that farther shore.” 

“ Yes,” said Alvia, ‘‘ I too have thought of 
that, — such a haze hangs over the valley, and 
above it, just over the precipice, a very dance of 
sunshine seems to flicker through the air. The 
mountain-side beyond, under the morning light, 
the happy blue above, the little cloud-shadows 
floating noiselessly over the summits, the broad 
expanse of valley, all seem to whisper of hope 
and heaven. liichard, you have promised to 
give me some day your dream of heaven, — tell 
me now,” she said, softly. 

I think a dream of heaven,” said he, after a 
little pause, “ can never be put into words. It 
is too ethereal, too spirituelle, to be clothed upon 
with the grosser material of an imperfect lan- 
guage, at least without presenting an appearance 
as something more or less grotesque. I confess 


184 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


quite freely that St. John’s idea of heaven seems 
far from anything blissful or lovely to me.” 

I can breathe more freely for those words,” 
said Alvia. ‘‘I have felt what you say, but — 
there was a time when I felt I was sacrilegious 
to feel it, much less did I dare to say it.” 

“ I believe,” answered Blessington, that we 
can prove the highest inspiration only by the 
test of what is purest, noblest, best. It is so 
natural to look for help and instruction from 
without, but the Great Spirit speaks to us 
through spirit of our own ; it is there we must 
listen for His voice, and there that we must test 
all other voices. There are some who must 
listen, it is true, more feebly than others, but 
why may not some, to-day, dream as truly as St. 
John of old ? (If indeed the Apocalypse were 
dreamed by St. John at all.) And who shall 
decide between the inspiration of then and now ? 
Surely stronger evidence we must have than a 
‘ Thus saith the Lord’ from the writer. 

“ Yes, I believe it impossible to put well any 
idea of heaven into words, but I will try to give 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


185 


you at least a glimpse of the vision that I have. 
It is not that it is anything especially original : 
it is only that it seems to be home, — a home 
that the soul could dwell in, love in, labor in, be 
happy in. I will not hold it before you as a cold 
description of place, for this were impossible; I 
can only sketch it for you in my own way.’’ 

Again for a moment he was silent, and Alvia 
did not disturb his dreaming. 

Presently he reached after her hand as one 
might grope for it in the darkness, for his vision 
was far away. 

“ A woman,” he said, “ knelt on a wintry 
night upon the frozen snow, — knelt in a lonely 
church-yard beside a little grave. She pressed 
her lips on the stone, where a little name was 
carved, and from out the cold a strange warmth 
seemed to creep about her, and from out the 
darkness a new light began to dawn. 

‘‘ As it grew every moment brighter and 
brighter, beautiful spires of a city began to 
glimmer through a haze and mountain summits 
came one by one into sight. Slowly the haze 
16 * 


186 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


melted — melted, — and the city and the mountains 
came clearly and more clearly upon her view. 
There were turrets, towers, and spires ; there were 
palatial dwellings she could distinguish, both 
within the city and without. Was this country, 
bathed in sunlight the most beautiful, floating 
from some unseen realm, closer and closer ? 
Or was she drawing nearer and nearer to its 
shores? Or was it a new sight that had been 
given her, an opening of an eye hitherto closed ? 

‘‘ As the country came clearer and clearer upon 
her view she could see crystalline rivers and seas 
of silver and gold. There were woodlands from 
which she heard 

I 

‘ Sweet carrollings soar. 

There were 

‘ Valleys bathed in light 
And lakes most peaceful.’ 

‘‘ Now the woman and the place are drawing 
nearer together. 

Oh, fair, fair to behold ! All that earthly 
tongue can picture cannot reach its grandeur 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 187 

nor its grace ; and hovering over it like an 
enchantment is the light that falls upon its 
hills and vales, upon its silvery waters and its 
‘ fields of living green.’ 

“ As she fioats nearer and nearer she seems to 
catch the peals of little children’s laughter, or 
anon some strains of music sweeter than she had 
known before. 

‘‘ And now her feet, feet that have known long 
weariness, are treading upon that ‘ living green.’ 

“ There is no weariness now; oh, the strength 
that ‘ floweth like a river’ through her veins ! 
She is able to see that the city and the country 
are peopled, and the very atmosphere seems to 
whisper to her that they are happy with labor 
and with love. She becomes aware of a sense 
of freedom far surpassing any she has known in 
the other sphere ; a feeling that what her spirit 
shall reach after that it can attain, yet leaving 
room for that spirit to grow inimitably in its 
aspirations. Some great weight and imprison- 
ment is lifted away from her, and even existence 
is bliss. 


188 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


“ Before her on an edge of woodland — a famil- 
iar woodland it seems — there stands a mansion 
fair ; its terraces are sunny, its dreamlike walks 
wind in and out among the groves. Tall and 
stately are its flowers in the light, low and fra- 
grant are its blossoms in the shade ; arcades of 
grandeur reach around it, and its windows all 
seem ‘ open to the day.’ 

“ The woman walks toward the spot instinc- 
tively, as though it were her home. And here 
she finds the old flowers, — the very buttercups 
beneath her feet, and the violets she had known 
and loved ; the sunshine on the grass, and little 
babbling, purling brooks that had laughed and 
held such wonders of promise to her in her 
childhood, — they seem again as they had seemed 
in those early, happy days. And there are asters, 
— ^how tenderly she had always cared for them ! 
Once they had been gathered and given her by 
dimpled, baby hands, the stemless blossoms. And 
now she finds a clump of tall, white pines 
against a little knoll, — that knoll where he, so 
long ago, with a lily in his hand, had told her 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


189 


that he loved her. Some day he will stand 
again beneath those trees with the scarlet lily; 
some day again he will meet her there and place 
the lily on her breast, — she cannot doubt it; yes, 
on the old knoll under the silvery pines he will 
meet her again. There are new beauties un- 
speakable, — great, grand, and fair, — but sweetest, 
tenderest, are the old associations. 

“ As she draws nearer the spot that attracts her, 
she sees a low, broad, marble wall surrounding 
it, tinged with that fair light that hovers over all ; 
she sees a wide gate that might be called ‘ The 
Gate Beautiful,’ and, oh, rapture that bids her 
heart stand still ! she sees a little figure that 
has clambered on the gate, and a little voice 

exulting drowns all other music of heaven ” 

but Alvia put her hand upon her husband’s, and 
he, looking into her eyes, said no more. Then, 
after a pause, he added : ‘‘ She knows not if an- 
thems are ringing through the celestial air, for 
one is ringing — how blissfully ringing ! — within 
her heart. 

“ Faint, from churches far below, comes a low 


190 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


chant softly murmured, — ‘ God be merciful, be 
merciful unto us and bless us.’ 

“‘They know not God,’ the woman softly 
utters, ‘ or they would only praise.’ 

“ With her child once more in her bosom 
there comes a longing to worship with gratitude 
and thanksgiving. 

“‘Let us go and thank the Father,’ she 
whispers.” 

Blessington paused, then added, — 

“ The next day when they found the woman 
lying on the little grave in the church-yard they 
called her ‘ dead !’ ” 

After a long, long silence, in which there was 
answer enough to Blessington without words, 
Alvia asked in a low voice, “ And the woman’s 
husband, — where was he ?” 

“ Coming,” answered Blessington, and again 
neither spoke. 

Then he said, “ It is but a touch of thought 
upon that happy realm, a sketch in outline only, 
for it is something that each individual soul 
must fill for itself. It seems to me a mistake to 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 19I 

try to follow with words too closely upon any 
details, for heaven surely is not an asylum where 
we are to be cared for upon a wholesale plan, — 
losing our individuality. If we can but realize 
that heaven means home, means freedom, means 
beauty, means love, — means the faces we have 
lost, — the heart will better add the rest.” 

Then, after a pause, he continued, looking 
away into space ; “ There I see heroes, — those 
with brave hearts and strong, whose names lie 
sculptured in earth’s marbles ; but other heroes 
too I see, — those for whom this world has sung 
no praise and sounded no gloried requiem. Ay, 
‘ they sleep, sleep all untold’ below, but God has 
raised their names above the depths of man’s 
oblivion. Their truth, their valor, their labor, 
their love, have free untrammelled action in that 
blissful estate. One sweet, gentle spirit comes 
before me ; I see the surprise of her unexpect- 
ing eyes when on her brow is pressed so radiant 
a crown. I see her walking to some sweet jar 
of odor, and, bending above it, she finds the 
treasured perfume of a patient, quiet, unselfish, 


192 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


unpretending life. ‘ How lovely, how fragrant !’ 
she says. ‘ It smells of violets, my favorite 
flower.’ 

“ All innocently unconscious that the rare odor 
had been garnered from loving thought and deed 
of hers : from small, unselflsh acts, patiently, un- 
obtrusively following the one after the other, — 
small in the world’s eye, but not one forgotten 
there.” 

“ It is Aunt Catharine,” murmured Alvia, 
softly. 

“ And the children, — have they no jars of fra- 
grance, — no little stars to fit their diadems ? See 
a shining wreath around the golden ringlets of 
the baby. Such tender, innocent little stars ! 
How pure their ray ! Stars of guileless love 
and innocent thought and baby trust and faith. 
How they twinkle and gleam among the golden 
ringlets, nothing in heaven more fair ! 

“ Far below on the sad earth-sphere are lying 
the discarded shackles of dishonesty, of mean- 
ness, of selfishness, of hatred, of sensuality. 
Above stand those who have conquered, — those 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


193 


who ‘ through much tribulation’ have climbed 
to celestial altitudes; and still others who have 
held their faces always toward the light of 
heaven as naturally as do the flowers. Pure, 
peaceful, exhilarating is the air of life they 
breathe : ravishing is the melody, blissful is the 
sunlight of those happy heights. 

“ But sweetest, most precious, is the sight of 
those that we have loved below, — those that 
so long ago were laid away from us in the sad- 
ness and the darkness and the silence of the 
tomb. Glimpses keep coming, coming of those 
faces that we loved, — no, not that we loved^ 
but that we love. I see them coming, com- 
ing toward the gate with their dear, familiar 
smiles.” 

They were loath to leave the ledge of rock 
that seemed now to Alvia to hang between this 
world and the realm of spirit; where it seemed 
to her that one might almost see 

“ Those angel-faces smile 
That we have loved long since 
And lost awhile.” 

I M 17 


194 


A SKETCH IN THE IDEAL. 


When at last they turned again to daily living 
they went — together. 

And now ever above them seems to hang the 
Indian Summer, — an Indian Summer with a 
brooding glory of love and peace and spirit- 
light : a glory of faith and trust and truth ; 
and so, heart in heart they wait upon the 
heights, upon the dreamful heights, for heights 
beyond. 


THE END. 


Printed by J. B. lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 



V 



































